The Woman in the Pit
by Bone Dry
Summary: My longest case fic yet; Brennan and Booth are shipped off to Northern California to identify a skeleton found in a pit, but what terrible circumstances led to her death? Rated T for language, violence, and a plot twist. Complete.
1. Airports and Hotel Rooms

**Major disclaimer:** **Most of the places and names in this story are real**, but the people are not. For convenience, I have **moved some buildings around**, **pretended buildings that were constructed a few years later are present** in my "current" time-period for the story, and, f**or places I have never actually been into or around, I have made up what they look like.**

Author's Note: I have finally decided, like Needles, to move my setting to _my_ setting, my home turf. My streets, my town, and lovely, druggy, meth-and/or-pot-head citizens (kidding). The vast majority of the places are, like I said above, real, some I've walked in or through many many times. Now you, like me, can have the northern Cali experience, written by a native.

At any rate, we are set second season, in September of 2006, right around Shroud but before Game. Take a moment to refresh what the season was like in terms of relationships and character development at that time.

Warning to anyone who has never read one of my fics: Very little fluff, no B/B, and heavy emphasis on the case aspect. Also, my angst "bunny", formally known as Caustic, is likely to get loose and go on a rampage. But I try my best to keep everything in canon, so if you liked the second season, you should like this.

Enough of my blabbering. It's time to start.

--

The Woman in the Pit

--

An uncertain shaft of sunlight broke through its cover of stained cotton clouds, briefly illuminating a lab table and its occupant before choking out again. The building itself was quiet, the early morning ensuring relative peace before other employees started to arrive.

The woman at the lab table glanced up at the sudden light, staring through a skylight at the moody sky. Rain was threatening, but it wasn't like the signaling of red flags and war generals; rather, it was like a waiter hovering over the last occupied table in a restaurant, the rest of the staff having already gone home for the night. Not subtle, but not astringent either.

Her eyes traveled downward again and she gingerly traced the edges of a piece of ivory before popping it back into its former position on the skull that had held her attention since midnight of this morning. Breathing a sigh of relief, she flipped open a file, peeled off her now sticky gloves, and reached for a pen, pulling off the cap with her teeth. She scribbled notes, flipping between pieces of paper and copying things that needed to be copied. Her hand began aching after a few minutes of work, and her eyelids were slowly sliding down. Sighing, she slid the pen behind her ear and shut the file, holding it to her chest as she rose. She transferred it to her teeth and picked up the sandbox in which the skull rested with both hands before quickly making her way down the stairs and off the forensic platform.

"Need any help, Dr. Brennan?" the voice of Roberts, one the security guards, offered.

She looked over at him but shook her head, mumbling a muffled 'thank you' through the file.

He nodded and she continued to her office.

Once she reached it, she set the skull's box on her coffee table, removed the file from her mouth, and placed it on her desk. Then she sighed. After standing there for a few moments, knowing she should fill out the rest of the file but having no desire to do so, she picked it up again and walked to her couch, dropping into it. Her pen slipped from behind her ear and she caught it, pressing it to the paper with purpose. Her mind told her fingers to move the pen, but they didn't and after some time her eyes refused to stay open. Involuntarily, she felt her body relax and the sounds of her brain lulling into silence. She fell asleep.

There were odd noises coming from somewhere to her right. It was muffled at first, but then it sort of sounded like hollow roaring. Then it silenced, and she peaked open an eye to see why.

Her office was dark, shades having been drawn over her window and doors, which were shut tightly. Slowly, and with great protest from her lower back, she rose and trudged to the drawn shades to shift aside a small corner of fabric. Outside, the lab was in full bustle, the cubicles around the forensic platform filled with blue lab coats. There were scientists moving along walkways, wheeling tables or carrying small vials or boxes, and there was a small group of cops around one particular station. They were handed whatever it was they wanted before promptly leaving. She grinned to herself at the looks exchanged between the scientists before they shook their heads and returned to their work.

Yawning, she stepped back from the doors, allowing the shades to slip back into place. As long as her office was shielded from everyday lab life, she could, theoretically, be able to go back to sleep. For once, mind agreed with body, and she walked around to her couch and plopped into it, still able to feel the warmth from her previous nap. She was just oozing back into into the little nook between pads when the quiet was suddenly invaded by outside sounds.

"Bones?" a sing-song voice called.

She exhaled and squished herself into the pad, hoping it would give the illusion that she was actually still asleep.

"Bones?"

She leveled her breathing.

"You know, I saw the curtains move from inside the office," his voice seemed to be moving closer. "I know you're awake."

Dammit.

"Come on, lazy Bones, up an' adom." Her eyelids squeezed together as light invaded the room. "The day calls." There was a plop by her feet and she could feel his leg touching her knee. "Booonnneeeessss."

With a groan that spoke of every second of whatever sleep she had just lost, she sat up, opening her eyes again. The sight that greeted her was Seeley Booth—a _cheery_ and _awake_ Seeley Booth—with a genuine, albeit evil, grin on his face, and a file in his hands. Oh no. She was not dealing with either of the issues in that statement just now. She fell back into her couch pads.

"Oh, Bones, you can sleep on the plane." He grinned down at her. "Though I can't guarantee it would be any more comfortable than the couch, but..."

"What?" from her down position she tried to grab his file, but he easily moved it out of reach. "Why would I be sleeping on a plane?" she already could guess why, but was hoping she was wrong.

"Director Cullen got a call, he passed it down the grapevine, and it landed on my desk. It's your lucky day, Bones, we get to go to California."

She sighed, "Doesn't that state have a single coroner?"

His face morphed into one of faux horror, "The great Temperance Brennan is willing to pass off her job to a mere coroner?"

"Admittedly, they don't have the training I do, but..." she paused. "Where in California?"

"Um," he opened his file and glanced inside. "Grass Valley."

"I don't know where that is."

"It's up in the Sierras."

"Near Chico?" she said, her voice twisting into one of disbelief. "There are three forensic anthropologists there. It's one of the few universities in the country where one can obtain his doctorate in the field."

"His?" he repeated. "What's with the sexism?"

"Grammatically, it's proper to use the male sex when referring to either sex."

"That doesn't seem right."

"Then contact the MLA or something," she closed her eyes.

"Funny," he said, despite the fact that he didn't laugh. "But come on, Bones, we have to..."

"No," her eyes flew open again. "Didn't you hear me? There are other forensic anthropologists there. They should be the ones to handle the case."

"Yeah, well, apparently they're all out on a dig in Argentina. Won't be back for a few months." The grin was back on his face, "And you were requested specially."

She released an irritated breath. "I do have other things that demand my attention, you know."

"We've been working together for over a year now, and Goodman is still on sabbatical so, you know, he can't mediate our disputes anymore. And besides, a few Limbo cases against a real life murder—no competition."

"All lives have equal importance, at least according to what you believe," she had the urge to sit up and argue with him face-to-face, but her stubborn streak held out, and she didn't move. "Which contradicts what you just said."

"Come on, Bones, can't we just skip the technicalities and Webster definitions?"

"I don't know what that means—"

"Oh, look at you two, bickering like an old married couple," a smooth voice cooed from the doorway and Brennan pursed her lips but didn't move. "And it's only nine o'clock. Must be a new record," Angela Montenegro stepped into a view, grinning as evilly as Booth. "Did I interrupt something?" a pointed look was directed at Brennan, who was laying flat on her back, and Booth, who was above her.

"No," the anthropologist sat up quickly. "No, you didn't."

"Whatever you say." She focused her attention on the agent, "So what brings you here so early in the morning?"

"We got a call in for a body."

"Then why isn't Bren already frothing to get going?"

"I'm sitting right here," Brennan said.

They ignored her.

"Well, she doesn't want to fly out."

"Ooh. Sounds fun," Angela said. "Where to?"

"California."

"North or South?"

"North."

"Scenic. You two should have fun."

"She doesn't want to go."

"Why?"

"Not sure. Something about other obligations."

"I have other cases!" Brennan exclaimed.

"Ah." She leaned in as if to tell a big secret. "Well, to tell you the truth, I think Cam and Brennan need to put a little space between each other for a little while."

"Still fighting?" he asked.

"We made up!" Brennan cut in.

Angela nodded.

"Fine!" she exclaimed. "I'll go! Happy?"

The artist and the FBI agent exchanged amused looks.

"Ugh," she rolled off the couch, grabbing her warm and comfortable blanket at the same time to fold it slightly more violently that she would have liked. "Incorrigible," she muttered to herself then paused, her eyes searching her coffee table. "Where's the skull?"

"Oh, I took it this morning," Angela said. "File was scattered all over the floor though. You really should stop working before falling asleep, honey."

"It's not like I have any control over it."

"Sure you do." She made to leave, "It's called _not_ bringing the file with you to the couch."

Brennan would've replied, but the artist was gone.

"Angela's right," Booth said, getting up. "So you want to drive to your apartment, pack, and then I'll pick you up in, say, an hour?"

She sighed, "Make it two."

"Sure thing, Bones."

She shot him a sickly sweet smile before he walked out as well.

--

Two and a half hours later, Brennan sat in her apartment, hands hooked loosely around the straps for her overnight bag, as well as a suitcase and a small faux leather bag, the latter of which contained some of her field equipment. She didn't know what to expect as far as supplies went over at the west coast scene, but she had learned over the years that making assumptions about anything work-related invariably led to trouble. And trouble invariably led to either disgruntled cops or uncomfortable questions at trial. Or both. It was a shame she couldn't bring a GPR, just in case.

Her thoughts fragmented, her leg jiggling a rough staccato against her table. Two hours of sleep. It was better to get none then to get so little. But the plane ride to California would be about eight hours, assuming there were no unexpected layovers or weather problems, so she could, in theory, sleep there.

There was a knock on her door and she rose, opening it after glancing through her peep-hole.

"Sorry I'm late," her partner greeted, offering a doughnut still wrapped in its paper sheath. "Turns out most of my lighter clothes were in the wash."

"California isn't going to be that warm this time of year," she said, accepting it and biting down.

"Yeah, well, the cop I spoke to told me to expect weather fluctuations. We don't know how long we're going to be there." He paused, glancing behind her at her bags. "Did you pack light clothes, Bones?"

"Of course. I brought my standard 'I-don't-know-what-temperature-to-expect-so-I'll-just-pack-it-all' wardrobe. "

He smiled, "Cute, Bones."

"I thought so too." She walked over to her bags and slung them over her shoulders. "And besides, if worse comes to worse, there are always clothing stores." She walked back over to him.

"I thought you hated shopping," he said as she shut her door and locked it.

"I do. With Angela. When I shop I go in, and I go out."

"Sounds good to me."

She nodded and took the lead heading down the stairs to the ground floor, all the while munching on her dougnut. It was three stories, but Booth didn't complain about the extra walking. His car was parked in front, illegally, and she shot him a look.

"It was faster," he said in his defense.

She nodded, accepting but not necessarily approving of it, yanking open the passenger-side door and climbing into her seat.

"Don't you want to put your bags in back?" he asked.

In response, she shoved her bags over the console with enough force that they landed on the back seats instead of the floor, keeping her faux leather bag at her feet.

"You feeling okay?"

"Yes," she said. "Just a little tired, that's all."

He gave her a once-over before shrugging and starting the engine, pulling into traffic.

"What kind of seats do we have?" she asked.

"First class. I love flying with you."

"Why?" her brows knit.

"Because when it's just me, I always get coach. When the Jeffersonian flies me _and_ you, I get first class."

"I'm glad you are finding my presence so advantageous."

He smiled and she smiled back.

The rest of the car ride was spent in relative silence as Booth navigated recklessly through traffic. Normally Brennan would've been worried about the possibility of an early demise at her partner's hands, but exhaustion was pulling at her eyelids and she fell into a doze, aware and yet unaware of the blaring of horns and traffic lights that lasted half an eternity. Eventually, the car rocked to a stop and Booth tapped her shoulder.

"What?" she asked when she was lucid.

"Dulles."

Nodding, she opened her car door and stumbled out, grabbing her bag in the process. Once her balance had returned, she opened the back door and took out the rest of her burdens, asking Booth at the same time if he wanted her to take his bags as well. He shook his head and she shut the door, watching as he pulled back onto the main road to begin his search for a parking space. Once he returned, shouldering his own bags, they headed into the airport together.

An hour, and several explanations of the contents of her bags later, the two were rushing to their plane. Almost immediately after they had settled into their seats the pilot announced that the plane was taking off and to remain buckled in their seats. The engine boomed and whined, and abruptly the plane lurched forward to begin its ascent in speed. Outside, the scenery was flashing by, and the faster it went the louder the engines roared until there was an abrupt pull, and there was lift-off. The pressure in Brennan's inner ear increased and she began moving her jaw back and forth until she felt a pop and her hearing returned to full function.

"This is the only thing I hate about planes," Booth complained, pulling a stick of gum from his pocket and inhaling it. He began chewing with a great deal of force, obviously trying to relieve his discomfort.

"It could be worse, Booth," she pointed out. "We could be in coach surrounded by noisy people or even a couple of kids." She paused for a moment, brooding in memories of children incessantly kicking her seat as she tried in vain to fill out case reports or to study her notes for a trial. Or, even worse, the overly chatty neighbor who continually attempted to see or even _read_ what she was doing.

"True," he said. The rate of his chewing slowed.

"So, I feel I've been patient about asking for information regarding the reason my expertise is needed."

"Yes you have, Bones, and I appreciate it," he smiled at her before yanking a briefcase from underneath his seat. "Let's see here..." he opened it and rifled around until he found the object of his search—a small notepad. Flipping through it, he paused on a page and skimmed for a few seconds before speaking, "Well, I didn't get much on context, but Cliffnotes' version—at approximately six o'clock, west coast time, a walker goes off the trail and she literally stumbles upon a body."

"Why did she go off the trail?"

He shrugged.

"Will she still be there to question when we get to the scene?"

He nodded. "She lives nearby, so the locals sent her to wait until we got there."

"Do you know if either her or the responding officers touched anything?"

"Nope."

"So you mean my remains are being left to a bunch of potentially untrained—"

"Bones," he held up a hand, "Relax. I ordered a freeze, alright? Nobody's going to touch anything."

She relaxed without ever having realized she had tensed to begin with. "Anything else?"

"No."

Nodding, she leaned back in her seat while pulling down the lever that would make it recline. "Tell me when we land."

"Think you're going to sleep through the entire flight?" he asked, sounding surprised.

She shrugged, closing her eyes, "I'm tired enough."

He could feel his eyes on her, "Okay, Bones. See you in eight hours."

For the third time that day, she fell asleep.

--

As she had predicted, her exhaustion was sufficient to last until they had almost reached Sacramento International. Upon waking up, she realized that outside it was already night, the glowing lights of the city below glittering like fireflies. Her clock said 8:29. Groaning, she sat up, rubbing her eyes, and felt every brain cell in her skull agree on one unforeseen, yet undeniable truth: she wouldn't be sleeping tonight.

"Evening, Sleeping Beauty," a cheery voice to her left broke in.

"Evening," she muttered, feeling refreshed despite her knowledge of impending insomnia. "We are in California, correct?"

"Yep."

"Landing soon?"

"Yep."

"I see," she yawned and stretched, her hands brushing the ceiling of the plane. When she felt her lower back loosen, she shifted back to her normal posture, swiveling her torso until she began hearing crunching.

"Ouch," Booth said.

She relaxed and looked at him, "It doesn't actually hurt. The popping sound is usually caused by either bubbles in synovial fluid or a build up of scar tissue around a joint."

"Which one for you?"

She shrugged, "Either. Possibly both."

He nodded but she didn't ask if he actually understood what she had said.

"We're about to land in Sacramento International," the intercom announced. "Please take your seats and make sure you're buckled in." He proceeded to thank the passengers for choosing Southwest Airlines and that he hoped they would remember him for most of their flight needs.

Shortly thereafter, the plane dipped and the blinking red and white lights on the runway became closer and more defined. Far away, another plane taxied to a terminal, where she could see people milling about through a few windows. They lurched forward when wheels hit earth, and the engine re-announced itself with a roar. When they had taxied to their terminal and had come to a complete halt, the pilot made another short speech and a cheer came from coach.

"Exciting, eh, Bones?" Booth asked.

"Enthralling," she replied dryly.

After a few more minutes of sitting, which was enough time for Brennan's stomach to begin forcefully reminding her of its needs, they were allowed out. At the waiting area, they quickly made their way through security and headed down to the bag trolley.

"Is anyone meeting us?" Brennan asked, watching bags ooze by.

"I think so," he grabbed for his cell phone. "Watch for my bags, will you?"

She nodded and he walked out the sliding double doors.

The airport wasn't nearly as large as Dulles, but it wasn't tiny either. Spaced around the luggage trolleys were three piers reaching to the ceiling—made entirely of baggage. She walked over to one and examined it. Real baggage. Raising an eyebrow, she looked around some more.

To her right were a few escalators, and behind those were a bunch of small set-ups for cinnamon rolls and the like. Upstairs she had noted that there was a mini food court. It had taken all of her self-control not to run over and purchase a crappy pizza. Now her control had waned, and her stomach was beginning to call the shots.

On cue, her luggage arrived, Booth's miraculously following. She trotted over and grabbed them, stacking each bag on top of the suitcases, then set off in the direction of the cinnamon rolls. She could smell them, almost tasted the sugar on her tongue. Five minutes and four dollars later, she was hungrily tearing into her pastry. Once it was gone, she walked over to the black seats arranged around the luggage trolley, sucking off every last morsel of sugar left on her fork before tossing it.

"Okay, there's two cars coming to pick us up," Booth said as he emerged from the double doors to her right. He dropped into the seat beside her.

"Why two?"

"One's our rental." He looked at her feet. "Thanks for getting my bags, Bones."

She smiled at him.

"At any rate, they'll bring us to our hotel and then give us directions to a restaurant."

"Haven't you eaten already?" she asked, feeling a twinge of guilt for eating her roll before Booth could have a bite.

"Yeah. On the plane."

The guilt vanished.

"But it wasn't all that good, so I am in the mood for some real food now."

"I see."

He glanced around her. "Oh. I think that's them."

She nodded, and they rose and grabbed their things in tandem before walking out.

"Agent Booth?" a man asked, stepping from his car. "Dr. Brennan?"

"Yes," Brennan said, pulling her Jeffersonian ID card from her pocket.

Booth nodded, "You're Officer Dayton?"

"Call me John," he said, then gestured to the man removing himself from a second vehicle. "And this is Sheriff Murray."

"Pete," the sheriff said.

"Pete Murray?" Booth repeated.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Pete said.

"What?" Brennan asked, looking at her partner.

"He's a singer, Bones."

"Oh."

"Bones?" John said.

Brennan flushed and the policemen glanced at each other.

"So," John said. "I wasn't sure what kind of car you'd wanted, and the dealer recommended this." He jabbed a finger behind him at a blue SUV. "I have one myself. Turns on a dime."

"Thanks," Booth said.

"At any rate, it's about a forty-five minute drive to the hotel. We'll direct you there."

"Where are we staying?" Brennan asked, opening the back door of their new rental car and pushing her luggage over fabric seats. She loaded Booth's while he talked.

"A Holiday Inn," he replied. "It's new and virtually in town. Maybe a five minute walk to a bunch of restaurants, shops, et cetera."

She slammed the door. "Will any restaurants be open by the time we get there?"

"Yes. It'll only be about seven after all," he said. "And the hotel has some food if you get desperate."

She nodded, and they thanked him and separated.

"Want me to drive?" Brennan offered.

"Sure," Booth surprised her by saying.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm sort of tired from the flight." He smiled at her, "Unless you don't want to."

"No. I was just surprised." She walked around to driver's side and hopped in.

Once Booth had buckled, the car in front pulled out, and Brennan oozed onto the road behind it. The airport was located behind a few large roads and came off a highway, and by the end of a few turns they ended up at a small security outpost where a toll would be paid. They were waved through after forking over some cash, and ended up on the highway.

Their flight arrival had coincided with the back-end of rush hour, and the traffic about ten minutes in brought them to a standstill. Although Booth commented that he thought that this part of California was rural, Brennan remained nonplussed. After spending two months in India trying to identify victims of an armed struggle between the Muslim and Hindu populations, she had learned what the definitions of snarled traffic and reckless driving really were.

Less than ten minutes later the traffic loosened up enough to allow for a steady speed, and in few minutes they were rolling near the speed limit. They switched highways, drove through a small district which consisted almost entirely of clothing and knick-knack stores, as well as restaurants, and ended up on yet another highway. Once they had passed from the farthest influences of Sacramento, the scenery shifted rather quickly into moderate to heavy forests pierced by the occasional road, sign, or building. Some were lit by an external light source, but most were just dark at the late hour.

On highway 49, which, at the entrance at least, was labeled as Grass Valley Highway, they exited into Grass Valley itself. The Sheriff's car took a right and swung around a bunch of shops before coming to a new-looking Holiday Inn, which had a modestly filled parking lot. Stepping out, Brennan took the opportunity to stretch, her legs feeling cramped after sitting for so much of the day. John joined her as Booth exited the car.

"If you like, you can go check in and drop off your things then go out for dinner. We're only a few minutes walk from the heart of town."

"Sounds good," Booth said. "You agree, Bones?"

She nodded, "Are you going to join us?"

"I actually have a date with my wife tonight," Pete said. "We were going to go out in a little while."

John shrugged, "I have the night free."

"Then why not come with us?" Booth asked. "That way we won't get lost."

"Sure," he smiled.

Pete waved and departed, leaving the partners to unload and walk to the hotel.

Inside, the floor was tiled, but a few feet in a large rug took over. Directly in front was a lounge area with a few couches, which bordered a small area filled with tables and chairs. A fireplace was on the right, and around the walls were glass tables, a few of which were adorned with coffee and tea equipment, as well as two kettles. To the left was the reception desk, which they headed toward.

A blonde woman, whose hair was tied back in a barrette, welcomed them and asked if they had a prior reserved room. They said they did and were given theirs keys. A trip to the elevator and the discovery that their rooms were across from each other later, Brennan and Booth had their luggage in their respective rooms, and were back downstairs, where John met them.

"So, what kind of food you two in the mood for?" he asked.

"What would you recommend?" Brennan asked.

"Well..." he paused. "There's a Thai place down the street, a few Italian places up the hill, and several burger-and-fries sort of joints. If you felt up to more driving, there's an Indian place, a second Thai place, a fish'n'chips..." he continued to rattle things off.

"What's closest?" Booth cut in.

"The Thai place."

"Okay," he nodded. "We'll go there."

Brennan nodded and John assumed the lead as they stepped from the parking lot and hung a left.

"So even out of DC we're eating Thai food?" she asked her partner dryly.

"Well, at least it's not take-out."

"It may end up that way."

"Hm," he paused for a moment. "Good point, Bones."

"We're going to eat it anyway, however?"

"Yes."

She shook her head and looked around.

This segment of town consisted entirely of commercial buildings squeezed between either each other or single-lane roads. Parking lots were found either in back of them or on the other-side of openings large enough to accommodate even large vehicles. The streets were lit by windows or streetlights and the air was only slightly nippy.

"John?" she said. "What sort of weather should we expect tomorrow?"

He stopped and thought to himself. Finally, "Dress lightly."

She nodded.

That concluded talk of the next day for the night.

--

Brennan was up until about two a.m. west coast time before she was able to forcefully diminish brain activity to the point that she could sleep. She woke up at seven, feeling neither refreshed nor tired, and rolled out of bed to greet the day after unsuccessfully trying to go back to sleep. Cracking a shaded window, she noted the honey-colored clouds passing lazily overhead. Her view featured mostly other buildings and, from here, she could also see the highway. Cars were already in commute, making distant _whoosh_ing sounds as they passed.

Allowing the shades to slide back, she walked over to her closet and took out her clothing, dressing leisurely. Her necklace du jour was a large beaded affair, hand-painted wood beads of varying colors centered around a large pendant featuring an elephant. Grabbing her scrubs, she slung them over an arm, picked up her scene bag, and rifled through her purse for car keys. Upon finding them, she proceeded out of her room, and walked downstairs and to her rental car, where she set down her burdens, relocked the car, and headed back into the hotel.

Booth met her in the buffet area. "Bones," he said. "Good morning. Sleep well?"

"Eh," she made a noncommittal gesture. "Well enough."

"Slept too long on the plane?" he asked with a grin.

She rolled her eyes and helped herself to a plate of eggs with a large side of fruit.

"Jeez, Bones, they've got bacon and sausage here."

"And do you know what's in bacon and sausage?"

He held up a hand, using the other to tong said foodstuffs onto his plate. "Whatever I don't know, I don't want to find out."

Flashing him a semi-evil grin, she set her plate down on a nearby table and began forking food into her mouth, Booth doing the same across from her.

"Oh," he said after a minute. "Coffee. Do you want coffee?"

She glanced up. "No."

"Sure?" he asked, getting up.

"Yes," she looked back down at her food. "I'm sure."

"Okay." He left her, poured his coffee, and came back. "And Pete called. He'll be out to direct us to the scene in..." his watch-hand came up. "Twenty."

She nodded, "Then let's hurry up and eat."

"Think we'll need a jacket?" he asked.

"No. It's already a little warm. It may be cooler if the body is down several feet, but I don't think you'll be needing layers."

He nodded. "Okay."

Conversation dwindled as the partners steadily worked their way through their respective breakfasts. Brennan was just setting her plate in the drop-off area when Pete appeared at her shoulder.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

She glanced at Booth, who was devouring his last bacon strip.

"I suspect we'll need another minute."

"No. I'm fine," her partner said, quickly getting up and setting down his own plate. "Let's roll."

They walked out.

"So would you like me to drive you or would you prefer to drive?" Pete asked.

"We should drive," Brennan said. "If recovery takes longer than a day, I'd like to know how to get there."

He nodded and opened his car door.

"Am I driving again?" the anthropologist asked Booth.

"Nope," he said. "One time deal."

She rolled her eyes, but took the passenger seat.

Booth started up the engine and watched as the Sheriff pulled out, following him as they headed out. Their destination turned out to be on the other end of Colfax Highway, which meant the trip took about five minutes, enough time for Brennan to slip into her scrubs and stuff her feet into purposefully tight-fitting boots. Once there, Booth parked and stepped outside.

"So this is why it was federal?" Brennan asked.

"Yeah," Booth said. "Someone gets murdered in a state park, the artillery is needed."

"Apparently."

"Yeah," Pete said, walking over, "This is Empire Mine State Park, used regularly by walkers. On normal days, there are horse trailers and dogs everywhere."

"I would have guessed," Brennan said, stepping over the the low rope fence that separated the parking lot from dirt.

Before them was, in essence, a large dirt trail narrowing into a few rusted bars that had probably once served as an entrance gate. Here the ground was scattered with hay and manure, punctured by tire tracks, horse hooves, and paw prints. It was muddy in a few places, telling her it had recently rained despite the current weather, and the soil was loose rather than cracked or dry. Below was a flat trail, bordered by rocks and twigs, which was obviously for the cars driving in.

"It's better to walk," Pete answered her unspoken question. "The trails get pretty narrow and we want to minimize any damage caused by vehicles."

She nodded. "How far in is it?"

"Few miles."

Nodding again, the two set off.

"Wait. A few miles?" Booth said.

"About an hour and a half walk if you're fast," Pete said, his long stride maintaining a constant speed. "It doesn't feel that long though."

Booth fell in step beside Brennan.

"Glad I wore my walking shoes," he said.

"Yes," she replied. "I am too."

They stepped down the path on the other end of the remains of the gate and ended up in a cleared gravel-strewn path. On their left it was forested, a few stone buildings poking out enough to almost catch the morning light.

"Can you tell us anything about this place, Pete?" Brennan asked.

"Well," he ran a hand through his salt'n'pepper hair. "Some. What we're in now is the walking part, but above you can take a tour through one of the safer mines. It's fairly unexciting, just a dank and damp old thing, where a few carts have been restored and are lying on inactive tracks. Around here are what used to be some old homes and further in are a few old buildings. There's also the Bourn house, where one of the most famous miners in this area used to live."

"I see."

They came to the end of the gravel path and were back on dirt, shaded by the needles of large evergreens and a few broad-leafs.

"What I find amusing is that almost everyone I've talked to who lives here as never even been to the main mining areas, only the trails. Visitors on the other hand, always seem to go there instead of here." He chuckled to himself as if it called up funny memories.

There was quiet.

The trail forked after a few minutes, and they continued straight ahead, another crumbled stone building to their left. The trails were surrounded by trees and various other plant life, snarls of blackberry bush creeping up pine trees and tangoing with peach-green vines that looked like they would've supported flowers in earlier months. As they got deeper in, some of the evergreens were replaced by leafy greens, and they were surrounded by color from the boughs' dying leaves. Here and there were splashes of yellow and deep crimson, broken up by patches of green and orange. Eventually, they reached another fork, took the top trail, and ended up on the bottom of a dusty hill.

They marched forward, Brennan's legs straining from the near-vertical incline. Once they reached the top, she was panting quietly, the cool air feeling warm on her skin, but none of them paused in stride. On the right was a ridge of sorts, covered by foliage, and on the left the trail broke away into a straight drop down. Below she could see hundreds of trees, the color dazzling in the early morning light. Eventually the tree cover from above completely blocked out the sun and the air temperature dropped noticeably as they began treading downhill. The view to the right began to resemble a rain forest, a fallen tree leaning against many others of its kind, the tops of oaks and sugar pines beginning to rise taller as they walked lower. At the bottom of the hill, Brennan glanced to her right and saw another near-vertical hill, only this one seemed even more steep.

"Don't worry, Doc," Pete said. "We don't have to tackle that one."

She heard a sigh of relief from her partner and heaved one as well. She was in good shape, but hiking up and down dirt trails was something she hadn't done for many months, and the pace they were walking was trying for her city-spoiled ankles.

They continued straight.

"Wow," she breathed.

"Yes. You came at just the right time."

They were on a small hill overlooking a creek, which was surrounded by oaks blazing in yellow. The evergreens were farther beyond this point, making the area one unbroken patch of yellow. Leaves coated the trees and ground like protective cover, clogging the creek's exit and almost completely obscuring a small bridge that reached from their path to the one on the other side of the creek.

Pete walked to the creek and knelt, cupping some of the water in his hands and drinking it.

"Is it safe to be doing that?" Brennan asked, kneeling beside him.

"Probably not," the sheriff said, shrugging, "But it's the cleanest tasting water I've ever had."

She dipped her own hands into the freezing waters and sipped, relishing the cold liquid as it ran down her throat and cooled her body. Booth did so as well, pouring some of the water down his hair and back.

They rested for a moment, one of Brennan's fingers tracing small pebbles and roots in the silty bottoms.

"Where is the body?" she asked.

Pete pointed along the creek, upstream. "There's a small deer trail up there. It's a little beyond it."

"Is there space to walk along the water?"

He shrugged. "Some. May have to leap over a few of the boggier places but..." he rose. "Other than that it's a straight shot through."

"How far in are we?"

"Almost two miles."

Nodding, she pushed to her feet, wiping the dirt from her fingers on her scrubs, and followed him as he went off the path and ducked under a fallen tree. She slid over it, landing between two rocks and a patch of water, feeling better than she normally would.

"Bones, be careful," Booth's voice came from behind her as he crunched over twigs.

She nodded, stepping from rock to rock and feeling water occasional lap her feet, cutting her pace to assuage him.

"Through here," Pete said a few minutes later, bending back a bough.

Brennan stopped and looked in his direction, joining him after finding a path through the stones.

Revealed beyond the tree was a hardly discernible clearing, more an absence of underbrush then anything. She took the lead, no longer paying attention to the swatches of color that surrounded her; instead, her eyes were trained on something small and green dancing through the air. As she approached she could hear its whine, as well as the whine of all its comrades, and the crunching of leaves under her feet as she came to the object of the flies' attention.

It was a pit, formed between the creek and the gnarled trunk of a massive evergreen, a blackberry bush wrapped around its base. She avoided the latter carefully as she walked to the most accessible entry point and knelt, pulling on latex gloves in the process. Her sheathed fingers pressed into the damp earth as she made her way down between the tree and a ridge of dirt, and she ignored the ants already crawling up the dead leaves, twigs, and soil to greet her.

"Need help, Bones?" Booth called from above.

"No. But once I'm down could you hand me my bag?"

He nodded.

Once she reached the bottom the air no longer smelled of trees. It smelled of earth and water, but over that, with the almost lazy viscosity that it always had, was a sour smell. A smell that caught in her nostrils and stuck to the roof of her mouth, absorbing into her hair and gloved fingers, and bogging down her lungs. She inhaled it shallowly, breathing through her mouth, and knelt, flies slapping into her body and humming around her ears as ants made their way up her boots. She blocked them out, reaching out to touch the pale yellow thing poking from the ground.

It was a skull, devoid of all but the most tenacious remains of flesh. Its orbits were directed toward the sky, the jaw below opened wide. Brennan's finger moved down, caressing the earth, feeling additional bumps where bones were more than likely present. She looked up, "Booth?"

He nodded, sliding her bag down the ridge as far as he could reach. She walked to it and held up a hand. He dropped it and she caught it.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

She knelt again, reaching inside the bag and finding a small brush. She took it to the bones, brushing soil away as she worked her way down, exposing vertebrae. Nodding to herself, she looked up again, absently flicking a few ants from her sleeve.

"Do we have a CSU?"

Pete nodded, "I'll call them in."

Her eyes returned to the skeleton. "Good," she said to herself. "Very good."

It was to be a long day.

_**--**_


	2. Bones and Steel Tables

_--_

_-Chapter Two-_

_--_

By the time the techs arrived on scene, Brennan had uncovered most of the skeleton. She had them sweep the area for any signs of disturbed plant growth and, once they were done, allowed a few down to sift the soil while she worked—yielding three teeth and four carpals. When the skeleton was fully revealed, a body bag was lowered and all of the pieces that were still held together were placed inside, the rest tucked into evidence baggies. After that, the portable lights were packed up, the tables folded, and the CSU left the woods.

Brennan stood at the bottom of the pit, staring absently at the scar where the skeleton had been, before her attention was caught by a voice from above.

"Need any help getting up, Bones?"

A staircase of sorts had been stamped into the earth, but it had crumbled after the techs had dragged the sifter up, and she was left in essentially the same situation she had been in before—namely, having to climb her way out.

"Please," she said, peeling off her gloves and stuffing them into a pocket. She then approached the dirt wall, made herself a foothold, and began the climb up. Halfway, Booth held out his hand and she took it to be lifted the rest of the way. She landed on her stomach and sat up slowly, her eyes directed up.

"Is it night?"

Pete glanced at his watch, "It's a quarter to nine." He looked back at her, "The team brought down sandwiches. Did you get one?"

She sifted through her memory and shook her head. "No."

"Oh great," her partner said. "We've had this conversation about eating before."

"Well, I was busy and my hands were grubby. It's not the sort of environment where one develops hunger pangs."

"Still, it's been...what? Thirteen hours since your last meal?"

"Then we'll eat when we get to town." She looked at him, "Have you eaten?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I had one of those sandwiches."

"That's filling."

He opened his mouth, closed it, turned to Pete. "Is there a ride we can take out of here?"

Brennan shook herself, noting that ants had made their way up her collar and that one was dangling off her bangs. It held on; she blew it off.

The sheriff shook his head, either ignoring or not noticing her movements, "Afraid not. The techs used a service road that's pretty tough on cars, which is why we didn't take it. The fastest way back is to go the way we came."

She nodded and began stripping off her scrubs, noting with distaste all of the black and red-headed ants that were crawling on them.

"Whoa, Bones, what are you doing?"

"I have clothes underneath this, Booth," she snapped, flicking one off her elbow. "And I smell and am covered with dirt." She didn't mention the ants.

He held up his hands.

"Sorry," she said in a considerably softer tone. "Tired."

He nodded.

Scrubs off, she stuffed them into her bag and treaded toward the creek, dipping her hands in and raking her fingers through the rushing water, running them over stones, rocks, and twigs. From her crouch, she slipped her mouth into the water, drinking until she could feel the water weight in her stomach—knowing she would cramp later but not caring. If she had gotten any soil as she drank, she didn't taste it as she swallowed.

"Let's go," she said finally, rising and wiping her hands on her clothes.

The men nodded and they set off. Conversation was non-existent, and trails were black and almost indistinguishable under tree cover. Where there were clearings the world was a gray-scale, and where there were trees it was an ink-stain. They all walked with a fair amount of fatigue, and going up their first hill Brennan's side seized up, forcing her to cut her pace by a third. They reached their car almost two hours later.

"Do you need me to direct you to town?" Pete asked.

Booth shook his head. "I remember the way."

He nodded. "Call me if you get lost."

"We will."

The sheriff departed, and Brennan climbed into the rental car, leaning against the seat as if she would fall off if she tried to lift her spine. If there were any ants still on her clothing or skin, she wouldn't have the energy to get them off. All she could think was that thank god flies didn't land and decide to make a perch out of a person too.

"Don't fall asleep, Bones," Booth warned. "It's five minutes."

She nodded.

"Do you want me to drive to a restaurant or would you rather walk?" When she looked at him, a grin was teasing his lips.

"How about this?" she said. "You can drop me at the restaurant and then you can drive back to the hotel, park, and walk back. That way we'll satisfy your needs."

He backed out his space, "Seriously, Bones, what would you like to do?"

"Honestly, I'd like to shower and go to bed."

"You have to eat."

"I'll survive."

He said nothing.

"What? No argument?"

"I've learned that arguing with you is sort of like those hamsters that run in plastic balls; goes nowhere."

"Glad you finally realized that."

He fired off another charm smile and it spread to her lips. They didn't talk the rest of the way, and when they got to the hotel Brennan went to her room immediately, tossing her pack onto a chair and stripping off her clothes as she walked to the closet, where she stuffed them into a waiting plastic bag, which she tied tightly. She retrieved her soaps and bath robe, slinging it over her arm as she walked to the bathroom and flipped on the water. Once it was near scalding, she hopped under and spent the next twenty minutes washing the grime of the day off her body, lathering her hair and scrubbing her skin until it was pink and she was sure none of the little fuckers still remained on her body.

Turning off the nozzle, she stepped out, reaching for a towel, and dried herself, slipping back into her robe after the water was no longer dripping from her body. She was halfway to her bed when someone knocked on the door. Exhaling, she walked to it and yanked the knob.

"Booth?"

It was a sight she was familiar with back home. She would open her door after a long day and he would be there clutching several boxes of take-out. She would comment on the late hour. He would comment that to her it was never late.

"Hey, Bones," he said, grinning. "Got you dinner."

With a mock scowl, she opened the door wide and allowed him entry.

"So I figured I'd let you have your shower and I..." his voice trailed off as he took in her state of dress. "I'm sorry. I should've let you change."

"It's fine," she said. "It's a long robe."

"If you say so." He placed the food on a side table and dragged over a desk chair. She settled beside the table, and he sat across from her, already busily unpacking foodstuffs.

"Where'd you get all this?"

He looked up, "An Italian place a minute away. Sergio's."

"Why there?"

"Called Pete. He recommended it. Said it was the best salmon he'd ever had. Also, apparently good alfredo sauce."

She nodded. "So what did you get?"

"Ravioli with alfredo and a salmon. Luckily, I just got back from there, so the food is still hot." He opened a white box and, as if to prove it, a wall of steam followed his fingers. "Do you want the pasta or the fish?"

"Pasta."

"Good. 'Cause I wanted the fish."

She snorted.

"Fork, Bones?"

She took the proffered utensil. "Thanks."

They cut into their food simultaneously.

"Pete was right," Booth said. "This is good salmon."

Brennan nodded, sponging up sauce with a ravioli before transferring it to her mouth. The alfredo was light but creamy, further flavored by a sprinkling of parmesan and just a touch of pepper. The ravioli itself was stuffed with spinach and some sort of cheese, and it wasn't mushy. "Very good."

He speared and chewed another piece of salmon. "So," he paused. "Anything you wanted to tell me about our skeleton?"

She looked up and shook her head. "It's all cursory and I don't want to say anything until I'm certain."

"Do you think it's a murder?"

She exhaled and nodded. "Enough for tonight though, Booth. She'll have her chance to tell her story tomorrow."

"It's a she?"

"I think so, yes."

It was his turn to nod, "Okay. We won't talk about it until tomorrow."

She smiled wearily at him and they returned to their meals in silence.

--

The start of the following day was essentially a mirror image of the one before, only Brennan was more rested because she had fallen asleep virtually the instant her partner had left her. Today, her necklace was a two-strung black-and-indigo affair with a semi-large black pendant in the middle. She wore a deep blue shirt and jeans to match, not bothering with a coat. After another breakfast with Booth, and a conversation with Pete about the morgue location, she set off with partner in tow.

The morgue, as it turned out, was attached to the Sheriff's building, or, rather, _under_ it—a fact she discovered after asking the woman in front where it could be found. Nodding, and already starting to dread how her work experience would end up, she inquired as to the location of Pete's office and was directed there.

"Is there a pathologist I will be working with?" she asked without any formalities when Pete opened his door. "Or a coroner?"

The sheriff blinked and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, to tell the truth, I'll be the one you're working with."

She waited for an explanation as to why this would be so.

"It's a small town, small population. I am not only the Sheriff but the Coroner as well."

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any medical training?"

"Naw. I took an online basics-of-human-anatomy class. I got a C." He grinned at her.

"Please say you're joking."

He blinked again. "Of course."

Booth said one of his first words since breakfast, "She's kind of literal."

She rolled her eyes back and fixed him with The Glare.

He held up his hands, "It's true."

Pete snorted.

She decided to let that one go and turned back to the sheriff. "I hope it would not offend you if I asked you to assist rather than lead."

He shook his head. "This is part of the reason we called you in. I knew I couldn't handle an anthropology case. This is your baby."

"My what?"

"Never mind." He looked at Booth, who was hiding his facial expression under his hand. "What do you plan on doing during the examination?"

"Well, usually I would go to the office and do some paperwork, but in this case I'm just sort of drifting."

Brennan cut in, "It's going to be a while, Booth. I suggest you find something do to."

"How long do you think you'll need me, Dr. Brennan?" Pete asked.

"I could work this alone if needed."

"In that case, I could occupy Agent Booth for a while. Show him where all the good restaurants and shops are. If he wanted to, of course," he looked at Booth.

"Sure," the agent said.

Brennan nodded. "Why don't you set me up downstairs, and then go."

"Do you have my number?"

She thought. "Yes. It's on a slip of paper in my purse."

"Good." He opened the door to the office, "Then let's go down to the morgue, shall we?"

She nodded.

The trio walked down a narrow hall with close-cut green felt carpet and beige walls, taking a left through a coffeeroom and another left into a small room with two potted plants and an elevator. Pete pushed the down button, and the doors to the elevator slid open with a slight squeak of protest before shutting once more.

"One stop," he said, pressing one of two buttons. The floor rattled and the ceiling groaned as the elevator cart moved downward. Hardly thirty seconds later, the doors were opening again.

"Welcome to the Grass Valley morgue."

Revealed before them was a hall with the same ugly beige walls as above, only the floor was a smooth tile as opposed to carpet. Down the hall were a few doors and it was to the first that Pete headed.

"Here is your basic safety equipment," he said. "There's a shower through that door to the right. Take anything you need."

It was a locker room of sorts. Since it was obvious that two people used this place at the most, the equipment was arranged on opposite sides, a sink on the middle wall. There was a small bench in the center of the room and a coat rack in the east corner. Beside it was the door to the shower.

Pete walked over to the coat rack and took his lab coat, shrugging it over his shoulders before grabbing a second one and handing it to Brennan. He then headed out of the room and to the door on the opposite wall.

This was the autopsy room. On the ceiling was a large ventilation unit, the floor sloping toward a drain in the center. A counter in an L-formation took up most of the two walls on the right, half of the space used up by sinks. There were boxes of latex gloves and masks hanging from pegs in the wall. To the left of the counters was a large cabinet which had a bunch of warning labels on it, and further beyond that was another door and a few bright orange trash cans. The color scheme was white-washed black-and-silver, the white-wash effect created by two very large lights on the ceiling which hurt Brennan's eyes when she looked at them for too long.

"This is our one autopsy suite," Pete said, walking toward the door in the corner. "And this," he opened it. "is the fridge."

It was empty. In fact, Brennan had never seen a fridge so small or so unoccupied in almost all of her career. The only bag present was on a wheeling table on the right, which had a whole box of baggies beside it.

"I'll wheel this out," Pete said. "You can go change."

Brennan nodded, already feeling chilled by the temperature, and quickly walked to the locker room where she set down her bag and pulled out her lab coat from the Jeffersonain.

"Jeez, Bones, what do you carry a whole laundromat with you?" Booth asked from the doorway.

She shot him another look, "Why did you follow me to the locker room? For all you know I could've been stripping." She slipped into the coat and buttoned it.

"Nope. You always put things over your clothes and besides, it's freezing down here."

She knelt and undid the ties for her boots. "You know, another woman may have been disturbed about your knowledge of my clothing habits." She set her shoes aside and felt inside her bag for her tennis shoes.

"Eh, you're pretty obvious, Bones. And besides," when she looked up he was grinning that damn grin of his. "You spend so much time with dead bodies only a blind person wouldn't notice."

"Thanks. I feel so..." she searched for something witty. Came up empty. "Something."

He laughed as she put the tennies on and fished a set of booties from her bag.

"How the hell do you fit all that stuff in there?" he asked next.

"It's called efficient packing." It was her turn to grin at him as she got up. "You should try it sometime."

He gave her a look of his own, and she reciprocated with her own grin before walking back to the morgue, where the skeleton in its body bag had been rolled out.

"Is that all you'll need?" Pete asked when he saw her.

"That's all," she said, nodding.

"Then I'll leave you to it. Call me if you need any assistance."

She nodded again and the two men left her.

When they were gone, and she could no longer hear the sounds of their footsteps on the tile, her attention become focused on the bag. She walked to it, pulling gloves from the nearby counter as she went, and slid the zipper all the way down. The smell from inside oozed out, becoming noticeable only as she gently transferred the skeleton onto the table. It was dry and didn't accost the senses; it simply blanketed them, turning the air into a mass of quiet sickness—because that's what it smelled like. Sickness.

The long bones were mostly still attached to the trunk, just as the skull was, but a lot of the smaller bones had slipped away, and she turned her attention to the box of baggies on a second table before proceeding. She pulled out the contents gingerly, setting them on the table in clumps according to what they were. Teeth here. Carpals there. Stray tarsal here. A vertebra. Another tooth. Once they were laid out, she began sorting right from left, placing the final counts into her palm before setting them with their former neighbors. The teeth she set by the skull, not yet worried about where glue would be found and if it would be the right brand or if there would be enough.

When everything was where it was supposed to be, she grabbed for the clipboard hanging from the stainless steel table and whispered a silent thank-you to Pete for sticking in a blank inventory form and sharpened pencil. She filled it out, pacing around the skeleton while counting. By the time she was done, she was pleased to find that only the coccyx and two carpals were missing, no doubt victims to flooding in the pit.

Moving onto the next form, she filled in the pertinent information before it was time for what she was really after: a profile.

First question: Sex.

The pelvis was held together by the stringy remains of ligaments and nothing more. It took only slight coaxing for them to give up their hold, and she was glad she wouldn't need to look at the surface for a while, because she knew that the flaky coating of flesh on the bones would be a pain to remove.

Holding the two pelvic halves by their wings, she brought them toward each other. Together, the lower borders of the pubic bones formed a wide arch, giving the pelvic inlet a boat-shape. When she flipped one of the wings, she noted that the sciatic notch was broad and shallow. Setting it down, Brennan walked to one of the sinks and wet a few rags, wrapping one around the pelvis and another around the head of the femur before turning her attention to the skull. What met her eyes were more classic signs—light muscle attachments, small mastoid process, delicate features, a fairly smooth skull.

Female.

She penciled it down.

Race was next.

Still holding the skull, she turned it again so that the facial bones faced her. The nasal bones met at a high angle along the midline and ended sharply—features typical of a narrow and prominent nose. High cheekbones and a "straight" profile when viewed from the side.

She marked "Caucasian," happy for the easy identification traits, since race could be a pain.

Age.

Since the teeth were scattered around the corner of the table, she picked up the mandible and looked hard at the root canals, noting that they looked fully formed. Moving back down, she unwrapped the femur and peeled off some of the now damp flesh, revealing the epiphyseal fusion, which was completed. So this was not a teenager. She moved upward, reaching for a clavicle and coaxing it loose from its bindings, ignoring, for now, the ugly mark in its body.

Bone fuses together with a relative amount of predictability. The points of secondary ossification, which are often the ends of long bones, fuse to the primary bone and form an epiphyseal ring. The amount of fusion can give one a general estimate of age. The medial clavicular suture is the last suture to fuse on the human body and is the last thing one looks for on a skeleton to determine age through growth. If the suture is fused, one looks for degeneration instead of growth, since it is around mid-twenties—when the medial clavicular suture closes—that osteoclast activity becomes more rigorous than that of the osteoblasts, the two cells responsible for bone resorption and formation, respectively.

This woman's clavicle had already fused.

Wishing she had x-rays, Brennan walked back to the pelvis and removed the rag, which smelled like a much heightened version of the dry death scent she could no longer detect without trying. The pelvic face had not smoothed out fully, still grainy in texture. The symphysial margin was absent of lipping. None of the bones showed signs of osteoarthritic activity.

Thirties, but probably at the lower end of the scale. To be safe, she would encompass the whole span of the decade.

She marked this on the clipboard and leaned back against the counter for a moment, savoring the return to a vertical position, her back complaining with a few jabs of pain to her spine. She stopped herself from rubbing the sore area, remembering that she was wearing gloves coated with all different kinds of organic matter. Instead, she swiveled her spine until she heard a satisfying crunch, and exhaled, walking back to the skeleton knowing she was only going to develop more stiffness by the end of the exam.

Pushing these thoughts aside, she reached for the left hand, which was still loosely encased in flesh. She re-wet a rag and wrapped it around the hand, as well as its pair, deciding it would be better for them both if she determined handedness without having to work around ligaments.

Although she was tempted to look at the mark that had caught her eye on the clavicle, Brennan moved down to the end of the skeleton, wanting to look for any further ID traits. Her eyes caught on the right tibia, and she gently separated it from its joints to bring it to her level. The bone was lumpy close to the middle, stretching all the way around the shaft. A healed break, and a nasty one at that. She searched for a pin but didn't find one, cursing quietly. That would've given identity.

Identity traits exhausted until she looked at the hands and measured the femur for height, Brennan walked over to the clavicle and picked it up, gently rubbing away a thin layer of yellow flesh until she had exposed the object of her search.

It was a slash, running obliquely over the body of the bone. It was not deep enough to cut the bone in two, but it was more than enough to have caused a considerable amount of pain, and it was sharp-edged. There was no remodeling around the bone, suggesting it was perimortem, but at close look she could see an extremely thin band of different color bordering the mark—which suggested it had occurred close to but not at the time of death.

During her inventory, she had noticed only one other bone with signs of trauma, and that was C4. She set down the clavicle and leaned over the vertebra, virtually forehead-to-jaw with the skeleton. The mark looked much the same as the one on the collarbone, only it ran transversely instead of diagonally across the body. There were absolutely no signs of healing, and considering it had cut the bone on its anterior side, the weapon had to have gone through both the larynx and the trachea—a fatal injury. It had also happened to fresh bone, considering the lack of hinging around the cut. Barring any new information, she could rule that as cause of death, and the manner itself a homicide.

She reached back over to the wrapped rags that were the hands and lifted one, noting that the flesh didn't look as if it was about to budge. Not bothering to test that assessment, she re-wrapped the rag and ripped off her gloves, walking over to one of the bright biohazard trashcans and tossing them. Her next destination was the sink marked "For ungloved hands _only_" and she turned the nozzle to hot and waited until she could see steam rising before she stuck her hands in and cursed, suddenly seeming to realize that steam meant scalding water.

Removing them hurriedly, she whipped her hands to relieve the heat and felt water slide off before reaching to turn down the hot and compensate with some cold. Sighing as the semi-warm water cooled her now burning hands, she wondered how she was supposed to clean the skeleton. She decided that this was a question for Pete and that she would also need to know where the glue was so she could stick teeth back into their proper places. Scrubbing her hands with soap, she washed off the suds and dried, already reaching to undo her lab coat.

"Finally done, Bones?" a voice spoke from the doorway.

"It's an exacting process," she replied without turning. "Just because I can't make snap judgments on the basis of my gut—"

"Relax," when she turned he was regarding her with an only slightly amused expression on his face. "Teasing."

"I see." She walked toward him. "Is Pete here?"

"Upstairs. He was down here for a while too, but decided to do paperwork."

She blinked, "How long have I been done here?"

His watch hand came up. "Several hours."

"And you're here to ensure that I eat?" she guessed, stepping past him and walking into the locker room.

"You know, whoever says you're not a genius..." he stopped when her brow knit as she met his eyes. "Nevermind."

She refrained from enlightening him on all the different things she had been called over the years, and instead focused on getting out of her lab coat and draping it over the coat rack.

"How bad do I smell?" she asked next, taking off her tennies while stripping off the booties and arcing them into a nearby trashcan.

"Seven points!"

She gave him a look.

"What? Oh, right. You smell fine."

She exhaled. "Good. I didn't feel like changing."

"So we're going out to lunch?"

"I have to ask Pete some things."

"And _then_ we're going out to lunch?"

"Yes," she exhaled. "Then we're going out to lunch."

_Still _grinning, the agent led the way to the elevator and out of the morgue.

--

After leaving Pete with instructions as to when and how to clean the bones, as well as asking to leave out some glue, Brennan allowed Booth to choose where and what they would be eating for a belated lunch. Fifteen minutes, and another trip down 49, later, the agent parked in front of a tiny building with a large bulldog attached to its name.

"Bubba's Bagels?" she read, her eyebrows arching.

"Pete said these are the best bagels in town," he said, opening his door. "Made fresh. _And_ homemade cream cheese."

"Can't argue with that," she said, stepping out of the car and toward the glass doors of the shop.

Inside, the building had about the same square footage as her office—cut in half. Three steps and she was at the counter, and on her left were tables squeezed close enough to the wall to allow two people to sit. On her right was either a real or model life-size front-half of a red sports car, sticking out of the wall. The painting around it resembled a rip in the building, as if to give the illusion the car had slammed its way through while miraculously staying intact. Through the glass doors of the counter were rows of bagels, and beside that were various cream cheeses and drinks. On the left, two refrigerators stood, and inside she could see other bottles of many kinds.

The small room had its advantages, however. The smell of baked bread was heavy in the air, intoxicating, and saliva began flooding into her mouth so abruptly it stung.

"What'll it be?" the man behind the counter asked, a red baseball cap with the bulldog on it slipping down his forehead a little.

"Do you sell them individually?" Booth asked.

"Yep."

"And could I order just enough cream cheese for the bagel?"

"Yep."

"Good," he smiled. "Everything."

The man nodded. "What kind of cream cheese?"

"What kind do you have?"

He indicated the blackboard behind him, half of which was devoted to cream cheese.

Booth stared, "Bones, why don't you go ahead of me?"

She nodded and looked at the guy behind the counter. "Banana nut with vanilla cream cheese."

He nodded as well.

"Jalapeño and cheddar," Booth decided.

Another nod, and the man set to work on the bagels.

"So what are we doing after this?" Brennan asked her partner.

"Anything you want, Bones."

"I'm open to anything. Of course, I could go back to the morgue after this and supervise—"

"Okay, by 'anything' I meant 'anything but the morgue.' "

"Or I could contact Hodgins. I'm sure he got the FedEx by now."

"I'll rephrase again. 'Anything' means 'anything but anything having to do with the lab or skeletons.' "

She exhaled, "That doesn't leave much."

The agent's shoulders dropped as his eyes flicked up briefly to the ceiling. "It leaves plenty."

"Such as...?"

"Scouting potential restaurants. I sense we could be here for a while."

"Then I would think we should be trying to find food we can prepare ourselves."

"Mis," the man behind the counter interrupted when Booth didn't respond right away. "Your bagels."

"Thank you. How much?" she reached for her wallet.

"No. My treat," Booth said, pulling out his own.

"I am capable of paying for my own meals."

"No. I took you out."

"To a bagel joint?"

"Whatever, Bones," he forked over a five before she could stop him. "I'm still paying."

She leveled a finger at him. "Then I'm getting the next one." With her other hand, she took her bagel and used her back to open the door for them.

"Don't you know it's rude to point?"

Her brows furrowed.

Instead of speaking further, he took a hardy bite from his bagel. "Jeez," he exclaimed. "Hot!"

"Well, what did you expect, Booth?" she asked, taking a considerably more practical bite from her own bagel, which was light and sweet, tasting of bananas. "Were you posturing or something?"

"No." He swallowed. "Just didn't expect it."

"Uh huh," she said, taking another bite and savoring the bagel as it disintegrated in her mouth.

Shooting her a look, Booth took another bite and made a show of his great pleasure with his eye movements. She snorted and leaned against their car, watching the traffic in front of her build and release.

"Think we should go back to the hotel and set up a link with the Jeffersonian?" she asked finally. "I mean, we haven't even discussed my findings yet."

With a sigh, Booth nodded. "Alright."

She consumed another piece of bagel and opened her car door while he did the same on the opposite side.

"Do you want to tell me what you found now or later?" he asked.

"I'll tell you all at once, that way I don't have to repeat myself."

"Okay," he turned the engine over.

The ride to the hotel didn't take long, and on the way they expressed their mutual pleasure with their bagels and discussed the possibility of purchasing a bag of them and a container of cream cheese for the mornings. By the time they were crossing the hotel threshold, they were debating what types to purchase, and on the elevator ride up they decided on a bag of onion and a second of everything. As she set up the laptop, Booth argued for a container of spicy cream cheese, while she said that she would not eat it and thus he would have to eat all of it before it expired—which would be detrimental to his health.

He said he could work it off at the gym.

She made a comment about how very male his behavior was.

Thankfully, a sudden pop-up stopped their bickering.

"Sweetie," the voice of Angela oozed from the laptop. "How's the foothills?"

"Warm," Brennan said. "How's DC?"

"Wet. And I hope it's warm because—"

"No," she cut in. "Is Hodgins there?"

A cloud of faux hurt passed over the artist's face. "You mean I'm not enough?"

"Hey, Dr. Brennan," Jack Hodgins said, suddenly appearing in front of the camera. "Got your packages."

"You know, that almost sounded dirty," Angela's dry voice proclaimed.

"Hi, Dr. Brennan!" Zack Addy piped in, sticking his head over Hodgins before promptly being pulled away.

"Hello," Brennan said. "Hodgins?"

"Right. They only came in recently but I looked at all the bugs and my preliminary is one to two years."

"That fits with decomp."

"Do you need a face, sweetie?" Angela asked.

"Well, we have an ID profile, so if that fails then yes."

"What is the profile?" Booth asked from her shoulder.

"Female, thirties, Caucasian. My own preliminary examination suggests that she was stabbed and later had her throat slit."

"Later?" Hodgins repeated, now far enough from the camera so she could see all three of her colleagues.

"There was evidence of healing. Again," she held up a hand. "I haven't had a chance to look closely at the clean bones."

"Wonderful," Angela muttered.

"Well," Hodgins said. "I've seen evidence of _Quercus kelloggii, Quercus vaccinifolia, Pinus lambertiana,__ Pinus—"_

"Hodgins," Brennan interrupted. "Can we not recite every tree found in a typical California forest?"

"Right." He paused and appeared to be thinking. "I haven't found anything of use yet, really."

She nodded.

"Dr. Brennan?" Zack said. "Are you going to send the bones here?"

"No." She shook her head, "I'll be conducting the exam myself."

"Would you like me to fly down and help?"

"I don't see any reason."

"Who needs a reason?" Angela said.

"What's all this?" another voice spoke, and the scientists turned, revealing a shadowy figure in the doorway of Angela's office.

"Oh," Hodgins said. "We're just talking with Brennan and Booth."

"About what?" Camille Saroyan asked, stepping closer to them. "And why didn't I hear about this?"

"You did, Camille," Booth said. "I told you the reason I was taking Bones."

"Yes, but not why my staff would be working on it."

Brennan held her tongue.

"Point of fact, I am Dr. Brennan's grad student," Zack said.

"And that's fine. But Dr. Hodgins and Angela here, are not."

Nobody replied.

"People," even from two time zones away Brennan could hear the frustration in her voice. "I am not the enemy. I need to hear about things like this so we don't get sued or...something. I am running this circus. Tell me before you start running evidence for a case that isn't ours."

"Ah, remember that time we used to work cases without fear of getting caught?" Hodgins asked.

"Oh, New Orleans," Angela said, grinning.

"What was that?" Cam said.

"Nothing."

She sighed. "Just run things by me, okay?"

Grudging nods from all around.

Cam looked at Brennan, "So what's going on?"

Quickly, she brought her up to speed.

"I see. Well, don't let me get in your way," she sounded annoyed. "Just carry on. I'll be here if, you know, I'm needed."

They all watched as she left.

"I think Cam's having trouble adjusting to us," Brennan said. "Though we did make up."

Booth exhaled at her shoulder but did not comment on that. "Squints," he said instead. "You have anything else for us?"

Head shakes all around.

"Contact us when you do."

Angela managed to say, "Call me, sweetie!" before the agent flipped the laptop screen shut.

"I think it's time for a Pepsi," he said, getting up. "You want one?"

Brennan shook her head. "No."

"Okay." He got up, "Be back soon. And then I guess we'll do...something."

"Back to the morgue," she said.

He exhaled, "Back to the morgue."

And that's where they went.

--

The morgue had not been the best place to go, as it turned out. The bones, although encased only in the most tenacious of flesh, still took about an hour to completely clean. Brennan took the opportunity to set up a weblink with Hodgins and talk about the evidence she either had sent or still possessed, while working with the objects themselves. The entomologist pulled out a necklace at one point in the conversation, and told her—after some examination—that there was still blood left in the deepest crevices of the design, supporting her belief that the victim's throat was cut.

It was with bitter irony that they noted the symbol on the necklace—a lion and lamb, the symbolic representation of peace on Earth, and she asked him to photograph it after it was cleaned and send the pictures to her. He nodded and they disconnected.

Booth at this point had long since gone, deciding that he was going to take a walk around town, and he had not yet returned. Brennan decided to check on the bones.

To her pleasure, they were clean, the water they had been soaking in now stinking and brown. When she pulled them out they were an off-white, tinged only slightly yellow, and she set them in their anatomical positions on the table. Once they were laid out, she took measure of the femur and walked to her laptop to run all of her numbers through Fordisc, a program used to calculate anthropomorphic data and assign the information into categories. Her sex, race, and age estimates matched those of the computer, and her stature measurement came back as one hundred sixty-three centimeters, or approximately five feet, four inches. She scribbled this down and turned her attention to the scapulae.

Handedness in a person can be useful for identification, as well as help one reconstruct how a victim may have fought back against an assailant. However, determining handedness is difficult at best, and the methods used are imprecise. Brennan was experienced enough to notice the subtle changes in bone growth, and she felt that every little bit counted when it came to identification, so she pulled a piece of chalk from her pocket and ran it along the rim of the glenoid fossa—the projection in the shoulder blade where the humerus meets the scapula. Then she stared. For a while.

Eventually, her eyes picked out a subtle difference in the right scapula. There was beveling outside the rim, indicating that the side had been favored over the other, and thus suggesting that the right was the dominant hand. A long check of the right humerus agreed—the deltoid process was almost imperceptibly larger than the left.

She wrote "R" on the space for handedness.

Her back screamed as she returned to a vertical position and walked to the head of the table, where teeth were lying in a glass dish as the skull grinned at her with an empty mouth. She picked up the dish and the skull and mandible, heading to a table projecting from the end of the counter, where she set them down. Pete had retrieved some Elmer's for her, and she placed the jar next to the teeth before beginning to separate right from left and top from bottom, relying almost purely on experience to differentiate between the four. When she was sure she had everything in its proper category, she began popping teeth back into their sockets to see if they fit. If they did, she applied glue and stuck them in; if they didn't, she would attempt to fill the empty space with another prospective tooth.

After the job was finished, she leaned back and stared. The second molar on the left side of the jaw had a filling, as well as the maxillary first molar on the right. The wisdom teeth had been removed surgically, the scarring on the bones telling her they had healed long ago. There was no sign of disease, and, except for the two fillings, they looked like normal, healthy teeth.

She noted all of this and leaned back.

Who were you, woman with the necklace that spoke of peace? Your pelvis gives no indication of childbearing, and there is no ring on or around your finger. Did you want children? Were you ever married? Or did you spend your nights alone?

Sighing, Brennan gingerly transferred the now teethed skull onto the table with the rest of its body, and found her eyes naturally drawn to the left clavicle. She could look at the direction of the cuts on both it and C4 to try to determine handedness of the killer, although the fact that it was the left collarbone that was hit already suggested a left-handed killer, but something else about the cut looked off to her. She hadn't really had an opportunity to look at it closely without the distortion of flesh, and she picked the bone up and brought it to eye-level.

Her eyes widened as she finally comprehended what the bubbling marks on the bone meant.

Dear God, what had happened to this woman?

--


	3. Cause of Death

--

_-Chapter Three-_

--

Four hours and a consultation with the lab later, Brennan closed her laptop and rubbed her eyes.

The clavicle and C4 were still under the camera she had hooked to the laptop, the skull having been moved back to the relative safety of the autopsy table. Angela now had pictures of it taken from every direction, and she had promised a face soon. She had been provided with the fax number; Brennan had been provided with instructions as to "liven" up her stay in California—which she had ignored.

Zack had been consulted both for his own position as her grad student and for a second opinion, and he had confirmed what Brennan suspected. Angela, having popped on near the end of their conversation, agreed. With three opinions, Brennan had asked what possible scenario could account for the information the bones provided. The picture formed wasn't a pretty one.

When Hodgins appeared, more information was extracted from him, and their scenario seemed plausible—even though they were scientists who rarely made accurate intuitive leaps. By the time his information had been relayed, Cam had walked in, drawn by the increasing crowd in Angela's office. After she had been brought to speed, she ran the scenario through her head and said that it seemed likely, possibly even more than likely. Angela had asked if she could create a 3-D version of it with the Angelator; Cam had okayed.

So now she just had to explain it to Pete and Booth, even though she felt as if she could fall asleep right where she sat. With a sigh, she rose, tucked the laptop and clipboard under an arm, and walked to the elevator, which took its sweet time rising to ground level. Once the doors opened, she glanced out a window and was only moderately surprised to see it was dark. Her clock told her it was about seven; her stomach told her it was time to eat.

Perfect.

She walked to Pete's office unhurriedly, passing only one person on the way who waved but said nothing. She nodded and passed him, her eyes traveling absently along the beige walls and picking up no change of texture. In the low lighting, it had an almost hypnotic effect, and she nearly ran straight into the door to the Sheriff's office. Shaking her head, she opened it and stepped through.

"Dr. Brennan," Pete said. "Was afraid you'd never come up."

"Well, I did." She looked around, "Where's Booth?"

"He was downstairs for a while but came back up. Think he went to the lounge."

"And where is that?"

"Down the hall. First right."

She nodded and set her things on an empty chair before walking out. The door was closed, and when she opened it she found Booth sprawled on the couch, a stack of magazines on a nearby table and one gripped loosely in his hands as he read.

"Didn't you bring a book?" she asked.

"Hm?" he looked up. "Bones?"

She nodded.

"Naw," he said, getting up and stretching. "Books are too sophisticated for the likes of me."

She rolled her eyes. "Then I'd have to wonder how you can manage to stay in or around the Jeffersonian for so long and so often."

He screwed up his face and mimed words he didn't voice.

"Come on. I have information on our victim."

"Is Pete still here?" he rolled off the couch.

"Yes."

"Good."

She led him to the office and took the seat that her laptop and clipboard had previously occupied. "Shall I begin?"

Pete nodded.

Booth mirrored the action.

"Our victim is white, female, approximately five foot, four inches, and in her thirties. Probably low-to-mid thirties. A healed fracture on her tibia suggests that she was in some sort of accident at some point in her life. Homicide.

"She died one-to-three years ago. Dr. Hodgins—my associate at the Jeffersonian—believes that two years would be the best assumption, but concluded that it would be safest to have a wider time range. I have sent photographs of the skull to our forensic artist, Angela Montenegro, who will try to give us a face. We also have all the teeth, so if dental records are obtained, we should have no trouble comparing them. Do you have a forensic odontologist on hand?"

"No," Pete shook his head.

"Okay. That's fine. I can do the comparison." She inhaled. This was where it got bad.

"The victim was buried naked. No clothing remnants were left in the pit. She bled out before she died—as evidenced by the knife mark on C4 and the blood on her necklace. The direction and angles of the cuts were indicative of a left-handed killer. There was also a wound on her clavicle, inflicted by the same knife." She paused. "The slash shows signs of osteomyeletis and attempts by the bone to heal itself, while the necrotic tissue present suggests that the infection was bad enough to have killed off some of the helper cells.

"Being extremely painful, the wound would have ensured that movement by the victim would have been limited, while not lethal in and of itself."

Neither of the men said anything, both staring at her with grim intensity.

"Osteomyeletis at this stage, as well as the bone growth, suggests that the victim was held for a time period of approximately two weeks before she was killed."

"No clothing?" Booth said.

"No clothing." She inhaled, "The only object besides the necklace that Dr. Hodgins found was a chord, which had been under the area where the hands had lain." She looked down at her clipboard and pulled out a photo, handing it to Booth, who handed it to Pete. The photograph featured the chord with a ruler next to it for scale, its form twisted into a ratty infinity symbol, the middle secured by a tight knot. "There were traces of blood around the interior."

"Any signs of sexual activity?"

She shook her head, "It was just the bones. One can't make an assessment for rape without soft tissue."

He nodded. "Is there anything else you can tell us?"

Again she shook her head, "That's all." She looked at Pete. "Angela's sketch may arrive in a few hours, although it's later in DC, so she may already have gone home. You will start the process on getting us an ID?"

"Yes," he said.

"Good."

All three rose simultaneously and exchanged goodbyes. Brennan and Booth left together; Pete stayed in his office.

"Do you want to go to the hotel, Bones?" her partner asked as they backed out of the parking lot and onto a quiet road.

"No. I'd like to eat something."

"There's a restaurant near here that Pete recommended."

"What sort of food?"

"Usual hodge-podge."

"I don't know what that means."

He smiled, "Lots of choices. Tonight is Pizza Night."

Her stomach growled, and she flushed.

"I'll take as a yes."

Snorting, she leaned back and agreed.

Their destination was on the other side of a highway which, as she later realized, was 49—seemingly the major highway in Grass Valley. It dawned on her that the name as its official highway was appropriate; from it, one could reach many of the major roads into town, and she was glad for the easy landmark in case they got lost, which was nigh possible considering the amount of side roads and trees which blocked both the roads and most of the sky.

The restaurant was called The Northridge, and they pulled into one of the spaces up front.

"Doesn't look too crowded," she noted, opening her car door and hopping out.

"Well," Booth replied. "Pete said there are three of these restaurants, and this is the newest one. There's another down in...Lake...something or other, and another somewhere else."

"You seem to have really grasped the details of your conversation. I almost feel like I could find my way to those places all on my own now."

He grimaced at her, "I thought you didn't do sarcasm."

"Usually I don't, but tonight I'm a little snippy."

"Snippy?"

"Snippy." She exhaled and her breath floated in the air. "Spent all day looking at the bones of a murdered woman who has yet to even have a name, let alone be known to her family who have missed her for two years. I believe, in this instance, I have a right to be a little curt."

"Hey," he held up his hands. "I wasn't criticizing, Bones, just wondering at your sudden change in demeanor."

She nodded. "Okay, and I'm sorry."

Seemingly on autopilot, he reached out and opened the door and paused, as if waiting for her to enter first.

She raised a brow.

Booth's mouth opened, and a little color worked into his cheeks, "Look, I didn't mean to imply you can't open the door yourself, Bones, I was just here first and it's common courtesy to—"

"Relax," she said, and stepped through. "It is true that although this is a society that traces its kin lines bilaterally, there is still a patronymic bias. As an anthropologist, I have accepted that."

He blinked. "What?"

"Well, take marriage for example. Although children can trace descent through either the mother or the father, it is common that the female will either take her husband's name or hyphenate it to his. That is a practice left over from our mother country's patriarchal system, which has technically been eliminated in our post-industrialized society." She paused for breath.

"Ma'am," a voice interrupted. "Would you like a table?"

Booth remained silent, apparently having decided to let her take the lead and thus eliminate any chance of instigating another anthropological tangent.

Unfortunately for him, she was on a roll.

After cordially accepting the waitress' offer for a seat, and ordering a cranberry juice, while Booth asked for an iced tea, she opened her mouth again, "Now, you opening the door for me is a social custom dictated by the remnants of this patriarchal system. It's a patronymic bias. Although the female liberation groups and thoughts of sexual equality have done a lot to eliminate male-female differences in relations, there remains a shift in the power scales, as well as the typical stereotypes associated with a particular sex."

Booth glanced around himself, "Do you have to say 'sex' quite that loudly, Bones? Can't you just say 'gender' or something?"

"Actually you bring up a common untruth—"

He groaned.

"...In reality, the words 'sex' and 'gender' have two entirely different meanings, although I have found that dictionaries occasionally mess up the definition for the latter. The word 'sex' refers to actual anatomical and physiological differences between _male_ and _female_. It's a system of classification according to body type. 'Gender,' on the other hand, does not refer to sex at all; rather, it's a combination of one's social status, emotional state, and economic role. When referring to gender, one would use words like 'masculine' and 'feminine.' In fact, if one confused sex and gender, I would probably be a man, and you would be a woman."

He held up his hands, "I would prefer not to be the woman, thank you."

"Well, why not? We're simply going with the confusion. And actually, a male not wanting to be associated with a female is virtually the culmination of this misunderstanding about the two words. Again, since gender and sex have nothing to do with each other, one can be a masculine female, or a feminine male. There's no shame in that. In fact, it is noted that in many Native American societies, people with roles differing from the ones generally associated with a certain sex were called "two spirits" or, for the Navajo, "nadleche." They were revered, and thought to have great spiritual power. There were men who wove and gathered, and women who hunted and went to war." Her juice, having been set in front of her at some point during her speech, suddenly came into focus and she took a long drink of the bitter liquid.

"You know, Bones, I didn't hear anything about sex in there."

She swallowed. "You mean sexual orientation?" She shook her head, "That's a third classification system, again, having nothing to do with the former two. One can be a feminine male who prefers to sleep with men, or a masculine female who prefers to sleep with men." Her throat was beginning to feel dry from all the talking and she took another sip of juice. "That's a third matter entirely, and is associated with much controversy—even in the scientific community. Cultural anthropologists who do not wish to be under siege from outraged people generally remain vague on the subject, or refer to massive amounts of study information, none of which I have in front of me. It's a cultural no-no, at least here."

"Mm," he said.

She inhaled. The weight of the day seemed to have lifted off her shoulders, and she felt like she had in her undergrad years—before she had decided that forensic anthropology would be her ideal career choice—when she had written papers and gotten into arguments on this very subject. It felt enormously better to say all that, as if just slipping into cultural anthropology again fulfilled her in some way.

It suddenly occurred to her that this almost cathartic release may have been Booth's motivation for bringing this whole subject up to begin with, unless it had been inadvertent and she had just gone off on a tangent. She silenced, and pondered this.

Just as she was about to give up and ask him, the waitress from the front walked over, carrying an enormous pizza, which was set down in front of them.

"Mm. Pizza," Booth said. "I love pizza."

The pizza was cheese and spinach covered, with a non-tomato sauce underneath. She took a slice and stared at it.

"What?" her partner asked, having already taken a bite out of his own. "No good?"

"Pine nuts," she said.

"You have an allergy?" he watched her.

"No. It's just..." she stopped.

"Uh oh," he exhaled. "What?"

The words came to her mouth before she could stop herself, "Do you realize that the Washo lived up around Lake Tahoe and the Great Basin, which is only a few hours away from here, and they had a massive ceremony called the _gumsaba_ where they gathered literally tons of pinyon nuts for annual consumption?"

He sighed. "No."

"And do you also realize that they had one of the highest women statuses in Native America?"

"No."

She inhaled, took a bite, and enlightened him on a short tale of the Washo, not pausing to wonder if he had already zoned out, or if he really cared at all. And when she went back to the hotel that night, she felt refreshed, and slept soundly, mentally thanking her partner for allowing her to slip back into the slightly more personal academics that some days she missed all too much.

--

Brennan woke up at nine the next morning, her body have apparently decided that it needed to recharge after her one-sided conversation last night, but she felt just as good as she had during dinner. Better even, because she had slept.

She exhaled and rolled over, snuggling deeper into the warm nest she had made for herself, and felt lazy but didn't care. Her mind wandered.

She had given more than enough ID traits to easily single out the victim in a line-up. Her suspicion was that the break in the victim's tibia had probably caused a limp some days, and had she been older when she had died, there probably would've been wearing of the lumbar vertebrae. Not to mention, through some good stroke of luck, all of the teeth had been found, and dentals could solidify an ID without too much trouble at all. The necklace would also be shown to family or friends and produce a confirmation. Brennan leaned back in her pillow.

It was always better to have a surplus of identification traits rather than a dearth.

She inhaled.

While she was confident about identifying the victim, or as confident as she could be, it was the investigative angle that bothered her. Although Pete seemed to be okay with her taking full lead on the forensics, he was also the sheriff and it didn't seem likely he would relinquish all aspects of the case to two persons from DC. She would need to ask how much control she could expect to enjoy, and if her role as an almost-equivalent field agent would bother him. There was also the matter of talking to the family, and, later, interrogations and arrest. Booth was federal, but she knew he wouldn't want to pull the rank card unless he had to.

Exhale.

God, she hated multijurisdictional cases.

With that thought, she rolled out of bed and peaked out a window. To her great surprise, there were dark clouds trooping over mountains, trees, and buildings, and the lighting was already dull and grayed. She blinked.

Hadn't it been blue skies and sixty degrees yesterday?

Shaking her head, she continued watching, feeling no desire to leave the sanctity of her room just yet.

Cars drifted lazily by on 49, a few converging out into Grass Valley proper, which was blocked by one large Victorian style building—a real estate agency, as she recalled. A few large trees had escaped the press of concrete and cropped up in odd places behind buildings and parking lots, and she could barely make out a Safeway ahead, where a few cars were pulling into its parking lot. She wondered vaguely if there was any fresh food that could be bought there.

As if on cue, someone knocked on her door.

"Bones!"

Her eyes flicked to the door, and her mind slipped from food to the state of her undress. She was wearing a thin-strapped low-cut tank-top, and sweats—her usual sleep attire, unless it was too hot and she just slept unclothed.

"Bones!"

She could quickly dress, but that idea didn't appeal to her because she preferred to do her morning routine unhurried, and, besides, by the time she emerged from the closet he probably would've broken down the door in a display of concern for her safety.

"Bones!"

She wondered what possible threat to her safety could exist in her room.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Maybe the hairdryer would somehow get caught in her hair, or fall in the shower. Or perhaps some sort of horrible contaminant would get in the heater and she would suffocate to death.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Bones!"

Or maybe in her sleep she would somehow manage to roll over and cut off her air supply, or a psychotic sniper would shoot her through the window from the top of the Safeway building.

She shook her head and brought her mind back to focus. Her job definitely added a certain amount of morbidity to her thought processes.

Rolling her shoulders, she answered the door.

"Bones, jeez, why didn't you answer?" Booth asked the moment the latch released. "For all I know something could've happened to you."

She didn't voice the scenarios that had been passing through her head, instead deciding upon, "Good morning to you as well."

His brows knit together. "Yeah. Good morning. Right."

She regarded him in his navy green shirt and khakis, the former of which was only slightly rumpled, and his clear brown eyes. "So, why are you here, Booth?"

"Oh," his voice inflection rose, as if he had just realized that he had come to her door with a purpose in mind. "I brought us breakfast." His hand rose from his side and she noticed that he was carrying a small bag with a bull-dog on it.

"Bagels?"

He nodded, a grin touching his lips. "I decided on the one we could agree on."

She backed aside and allowed him to step through. "Everything with regular?"

"You got it."

She snorted and sat on her bed as he began arranging the foodstuffs on a table, like he had a few nights before.

"I also got a knife, so we don't need to make a trip downstairs to steal one."

"Weren't they already decorated?" she asked.

"Nope. I bought a package of four. One for today," he handed her a bagel. "One for tomorrow."

"I may have deduced that."

"Nope. See, I get official custody of the bagels because if you had them you would just eat one for dinner and say that since you had already eaten, there would be no need for you to leave the morgue."

"Official custody?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow as she reached for the container of cream cheese and popped off the top.

"Yes," Booth said and handed her the knife. "Official custody, Bones. I am qualified, you know."

"You are, are you?" she looked up at him through her bangs.

"Oh, yes. That's why I'm a _special_ agent."

"Because you can watch a bag of bagels?"

"That and I can guard them from _you_, a job for only those not of the faint of heart."

"I see." Her attention returned to the bagel and she smeared it with white cream cheese as saliva poured into her mouth. She handed him the container and the knife when she was finished. "So will there be a department in the FBI proclaiming 'the Federal Bagel Watchers of America'?"

He grinned at her, "Headed by yours truly."

"I'm sure this is a promotion that everyone at the workplace will be truly jealous of."

"Hey, I'll be in a room full of bagels and coffee. Everyone will want to be where I will be."

"So you'll have coffee too?"

"Yes. Everyone knows that bagels and coffee go great together."

"But we haven't had coffee with our bagels either yesterday or today," she pointed out.

"True," he seemed to ponder this. "Then maybe it'll have to be added onto the Bagel Department. Like an amendment."

"An amendment for a department which sole focus is on bagels?"

"Yes," he said, a grin on his face, though it had yet to crack into laughter.

She snorted, "You, Booth, are silly."

"Is that such a bad thing? What's so great about being serious all the time, huh? It's good to have some fun."

"Yes," she agreed.

He paused, "You really think so?"

"Of course, Booth. I may not participate in extravagant displays of frivolity, but I do enjoy light-hearted conversation and activities." She took a bite out of her bagel and chewed. "However," she swallowed. "We do have an open case, and a dead woman without a name, so I feel that we should put aside personal enjoyment for a while longer in favor of helping her get back to her family."

He nodded. "Yeah. You're right."

"I didn't want to kill the mood or anything, but we should not forget that we're not on vacation." She didn't speak until she had consumed another bite. "Have you talked to Pete this morning?"

"Yes," he was quietly eating his own bagel. "He's got the ball rolling on IDing her. He said it shouldn't be too difficult, considering how much information he got from you and how little MPs there are here."

"Will he call when he gets a possible match?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"Do you know how much freedom we have with investigation?"

"I'll ask when we get her name."

It was her turn to nod. "So right now we're just waiting?"

"Yep. Right now, we're waiting."

Another nod, and they went back to eating and light conversation.

Two hours later, her phone rang. Pete had an ID.

--

"Her name was Julia Beldon, born April eleventh, 1970," Pete began after Brennan had confirmed the dentals. "She disappeared October thirteenth, 2004."

Thirty-four years-old.

"Who reported her missing?" Booth asked.

"Her sister. They had gone out for a drink and it was raining pretty heavily. She called to see if she had gotten home safely, and no one ever answered." He paused, but neither partner said anything. "She worked in Quail Ridge—a retirement community. Never any reports of dislike. By all accounts, she was a good person. Volunteered at the animal shelters, participated in some of the programs for the homeless. Never got a ticket." He closed the file he had been reading from. "Family and friends didn't notice anything off with her behavior, and Julia wasn't complaining about anyone. She just disappeared."

"Was she married?" Brennan asked.

"No," he shook his head.

She got up, "And does the family live here?"

"Yes." He rose as well, followed by Booth. "I've already called the sister, and she's going to meet us at the parents' house. We'll tell them all together." He opened the door and the partners stepped out as he removed a set of keys from his pocket.

He locked it as Brennan asked, "What about friends?"

"Have to call around and ask if they're still here. Linda can tell us."

"Her mother?"

He shook his head, "Sister."

She nodded.

A heavy sort of silence enveloped them as they walked outside, where the sky was rapidly covering blue patches with gray, though the air was only sightly cool. Brennan pulled her coat more tightly about herself as they walked to Pete's car and piled in. She took the front; her partner took the back.

The ride to the Beldon house did not take long, requiring another trip down 49 and a convergence onto Colfax, where they passed Empire Mine and took a left into a sleepy residential district. Trees, blazing with fall colors, bordered the street on both sides, and homes were generally nestled between them. Some houses were bordered with shrubs; others had ivy wrapping around their bases. Still others had large lawns, mostly unfenced, where a few dogs ran around tree trunks and shrubs. They passed a pair of older walkers, an equally elderly black lab between them, and a few squirrels. Rain drops fell onto the windshield as if from a salt shaker, wipers lazily attending to the wet at slow intervals.

Their destination was a brown home flanked by trees of deep crimson, a grass yard in front covered with leaves and branches. Potted plants, some dead, bordered a fence to the right, which separated this property from the neighbors'. When Pete parked, and they hopped from the car, a cacophony of barks came from the house, and Brennan noted the flash of a gray face in the window before its owner scrambled away. Rain fell pleasantly on her hair and arms as the trio walked to the fence gating which connected the house to the garage—something which had been constructed with the dog in mind, as evidenced by the small figure rushing to them before the person who had opened the door had a chance to react.

"Georgie!" a voice barely registered over the desperate barking of the dog. "Georgie!" Two hands wrapped around his body and lifted him, and Brennan regarded the woman speaking.

Her hair had long since grayed, lines around her eyes and mouth suggesting that she was over middle-age, and her hands displayed veins and bone prominently. She had soft brown irises, like the inside of a piece of fudge, and they looked worn and taxed, though the ghost of a smile played on her lips when she glanced at her charge.

"I'm sorry," her voice was as soft as her eyes. "He gets excited whenever anyone comes to see us."

"Thinks the visitors are for him?" Brennan asked, flashing back on memories of other dogs.

She nodded. "And they usually are." Her eyes slid back down. "Will you behave now?"

Georgie glanced up at her, his own equally-brown eyes meeting hers as his tail wagged madly.

"I take that as a yes," she said and opened the gate, allowing Brennan, Booth, and Pete entry before she released him.

He immediately bounded to Brennan, hopping on her legs and doing his best to entice her into play. She bent and gave him a scratch while Booth said something she didn't catch, and the woman replied in turn. Georgie was a Scottish Terrier, his hair soft but not entirely clean, and he licked her hand when she offered it for him to sniff. She smiled and wiped her hand on his head, and laughed when he made a move to lick her face.

"Bones," Booth's voice called her back.

She looked up, and the reason they were there slammed back into her with the force of a steam train. She straightened, whispering an apology to the disappointed Georgie, and the smile slipped from her lips.

"Come in," the woman said, opening the door wider. They walked into a carpeted living room where three couches had been placed, a two-part L-shape bordering the west wall, and a free standing one to the right. "This is my husband, Scott," she pointed to the man settled into the L-couch. His hair was also gray, a set of glasses on a chain around his neck. He rose to greet them, and they shook his hand. "My name is Olivia."

"Mom, is it another squirrel?" a voice called from the right, and they turned to see a woman in her thirties walk in, hands twisting her hair into a pony tail. "Oh." She stopped as if turned to stone, and Georgie ran to her side. "You were the ones who found my sister?"

All three nodded.

"Sit," Scott said, and he did so as Linda walked to his side and dropped beside him—Georgie leaping onto her lap the instant he was able.

The trio obeyed. Pete and Booth took the couch while Brennan settled on an ottoman.

"Would you like some tea or something to eat...or something?" Olivia asked, poised at the door-frame.

"No, thank you," Booth said.

"Would either of you?" she directed her attention to Brennan and Pete, who both refused.

With a sigh, she walked to her husband and sat beside him, her daughter's hand snaking around her own as he pulled her closer.

The three investigators exchanged glances before Brennan opened her mouth and began.

"I am Dr. Temperance Brennan from the Jeffersonian Institution in Washington D.C. This," she gestured to the couch. "is Special Agent Seeley Booth. You know Pete Murray?"

Solemn nodding.

Linda said, "Yes."

She inhaled, "We have positively identified the remains found in Empire Mine as your daughter, Julia Beldon."

There was a sharp intake of breath, and Olivia's hand turned white as it gripped her remaining daughter's fingers. Georgie stretched his neck out and nuzzled her palm.

Booth took over as Brennan's voice caught, her facts that the family could hear already virtually exhausted.

"Our sincere condolences, Mr. and Mrs. Beldon," he said.

"Can we see her?" Olivia asked. "I mean, to make sure, I mean..."

Brennan shook her head. "She's been buried for two years. There's nothing left of her but her bones."

Her eyes squeezed shut as she inhaled sharply, leaning against her husband.

Booth shot her a glare.

_What?_ she mouthed.

He ignored her. "Linda—is it okay if I call you Linda?"

Julia's sister nodded.

"You were the last person to have seen Julia alive. Could you recount everything you can remember from that night?"

With a free hand, she reached up and brushed tears from her eyes. "She had just had her car repaired—a limb fell on the windshield a few nights before—and we went out for a drink after picking it up. It wasn't like we were in town or anything, but it was raining. Felt like a good time for a drink, you know?"

He nodded.

She exhaled, "Julie, she—she got a little drunk. I told her to let me drive her home, but I had a meeting the next day, and she knew about it. She told me she'd be fine and this guy sitting a table over heard us and offered to drive her home." She chuckled, sniffing, "We only have a few taxis in town and he was one of the drivers. She took his offer and they drove off." Pause. "When I called...she never answered."

Brennan glanced at Pete, who shook his head.

Booth nodded, his eyes locked on Linda.

"I figured that maybe she'd gone to bed or...something else."

His eyebrows creased, "What do you mean?"

She inhaled, "Julie was in a rare dry spell. That's one of the things we were joking about and toasting to..." her voice trailed off. "Men." The word was said bitterly. She glanced up then back down, "The taxi-man was attractive. I figured she may have gotten him into bed." She laughed again, "She could be very charming when she wanted to."

No one said anything; Linda's mother had not opened her eyes yet, still leaning on her husband as if she would fall to pieces if she attempted to sit straight of her own power.

"But when I called the next day she still wasn't answering, and after my meeting I stopped by her house. No answer." She inhaled. "I called the bar. Her car was still there. She hadn't come to pick it up. I waited," she looked up finally and her eyes met Brennan's briefly before focusing on Booth. They were red, her own hazel irises clouded over. "I waited an entire day to report her missing." Her fist slammed onto the coffee table in front of her with a _bang, _a sob escaping from her lips. "I waited!"

Her father hugged her close as Georgie stared up at her with concern, his small body tense.

"You," she looked at Brennan, wiping her eyes. "You found my sister? You...dug her up?"

She nodded.

"And you...you examined her?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, please," the eye-contact was so hard it almost seemed to burn the air between them. "Did she suffer?"

Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Yes, she had most definitely suffered. The slash on her clavicle would have been painful enough, but the infection would have given her fever and chills. Whatever she was being fed had probably been vomited back up, and she didn't even want to speculate as to why Julia would have been held for as long as she had.

Her delay in response seemed answer enough, and Linda erupted in sobs as her mother and father choked on their breath.

Booth shot her another glare but Brennan could only look on helplessly at the emotional crisis she had caused.

In the end, Pete solved the issue, and with a flurry of words he managed to calm the family down enough to allow them an exit. Cards were exchanged, and vague promises were given, before the trio left the house and its occupants. Their last sight as they left was the face of Georgie, who guarded their departure out the window with solemn brown eyes and the hint of a lolling pink tongue.

--


	4. Elizabeth Marshall

--

-_Chapter Four-_

--

Booth left after dropping Brennan and Pete off at the Sheriff's Department, his intention to talk to the taxi-driver. Pete had told him that the man had dropped Julia at her house before leaving to go to a party held by his relatives—giving him a solid alibi—and Booth had understood this but still wanted to jog the man's memory to see if he could remember anything strange that had happened that night. Pete had nodded and the agent had taken off.

"Dr. Brennan," the Sheriff said as her partner melted into 49 traffic. "There's been something I've been meaning to tell you."

She looked at him. "What?"

"Well," he started walking toward the sheriff building. "I wasn't entirely sure until just last night, after you gave your report and I called her, but..." his voice trailed off.

"Yes?" she prompted.

He exhaled. "I'm afraid this isn't the first victim by this psycho."

She stopped. "What?"

"I never handled the cases directly, since they were obviously for an anthropologist, but I handled the investigative angle. We haven't seen CODs that violent in a long time." He opened the door and they stepped through. "When I called, she dropped everything and flew up."

"Who?"

A woman rose from a seat hidden behind a large plant, and walked to them. "Talking about me, Pete?" she asked.

He smiled in a way that suggested he was happier to see her than hear her voice. "Funny, Liz."

"I like to think I am." Dark brown eyes met Brennan's. "You are Temperance Brennan?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Elizabeth Marshall," she held out a hand, which Brennan shook. "You look familiar. Have we met before?"

She eyed her blankly.

Marshall was African-American, maybe about four or five inches shorter than herself. She wore a rather rumpled suit and hadn't bothered with heels. Her eyelids suggested she had been asleep not too long ago; her ratty pony-tail agreed with this assessment.

"It's possible," Brennan said, her examination calling up no memories. "I lecture all over the place, and I'm on the board."

"Hm. No matter." She shrugged.

"I have some paperwork that needs filling out," Pete said. "So I'll leave you ladies to it. Unless you need anything?"

They shook their heads.

He nodded and walked away.

Marshall looked at Brennan, "Should we get down to business?"

Brennan nodded. "Let's."

"Tell me what you know."

She did, recounting all of the information she had learned from Julia's family as well as cause and manner of death, as they walked to the morgue.

"I see," Marshall muttered, walking to a door hidden behind a row of cabinets in the autopsy suite. "I assume Pete told you about my involvement?"

"Not much," Brennan said. "He didn't even bring it up until we got here."

"Typical," she reached onto a high shelf and pulled down a box. "He always likes to let people explain for themselves, which is nice, you know, until speed and coherency are needed at the same time."

"I didn't get the impression we needed speed right now."

She glanced at her. "No. I was just speaking from memory." She set it down and reached for a second box, picking it up and placing it next to the first. Then she began opening them, revealing a clavicle, right ulna, and C3 in the first, and clavicle and C4 for the second. She laid them out on separate tables, then spoke.

"Carrie Patel, thirty-two. She was the first." She indicated the ulna. "Defensive wounds suggested that she was attacked by the knife and used her arm to shield herself. Healing suggests this was the first wound she received. The second was a crack to her collarbone. Both of these wounds became infected." She pointed to C3. "Cause of death was a slash to the throat." Although a folder lay on the table, she never referenced it. "We found her in a ditch near Collin's Lake. No clothing except her necklace, which was caked in blood. There was the remains of a chord around her wrists, and she was buried face-up. This was six years ago.

"Carol Sorrentino, thirty-nine," she moved to the second table. "No defensive wounds this time, just a slash to the clavicle and a slice on C4. She was buried the same way as Carrie and also had an infected collarbone. The only difference between the two women beside the defensive injuries was that Carrie was held for probably about four weeks, while Carol lasted about three. She died four years ago.

"The families couldn't tell us anything, any leads the cops turned up went nowhere." She picked up the file and held it out. "Pete is the sheriff, but he tells me an agent came with you to town. Perhaps you should give it to him after reviewing; explain things to him. Maybe he'll find something we missed."

"We," Brennan said automatically.

"What?" she looked up.

"We are partners. I work both in the lab and the field."

Her eyebrows crimped, "Then how are you not drowning in paperwork?"

She grinned mischievously, "One of the perks of being a scientist in the field acting almost essentially as an FBI agent without actually _being_ an FBI agent is that I don't get paperwork from that side of the job."

"Then who does?"

"My partner."

"Oh," she nodded knowingly. "That's handy. Trick the poor sap?"

"No," she was still grinning. "It was a fair trade."

"What's a fair trade for doing your paperwork?"

"Eh, he pissed me off but still needed my expertise."

"So what did you do?"

"Blackmailed him."

"Isn't that a felony?"

"Eh..." she shrugged.

"You are fearless."

"Although at the time I never thought he'd accept."

"Win-win?"

"You got it."

By this time they had drifted the counter, which Brennan leaned against while Marshall settled onto a stool.

"Who handles the lab work while you're in the field playing cop?"

"My grad student, Zack Addy."

"I always wanted one of those. Does he do the paperwork?"

She thought, "You know, he does seem to handle more than I do some days." She paused, "And if you want one, why don't you get one? You seem competent."

"Competent?" she repeated. "Now there's a compliment if I ever got one."

"That's a joke, right?"

"More accurately, sarcasm, but close enough. No," she leaned back. "I teach over in Chico and spend the rest of my time digging up mass graves."

"How did you end up handling ME cases?"

"Don't know, honestly," she shrugged. "One day I was lecturing and the next I was in here. Maybe I just wanted to do more than I could do for the Disappeared, you know?"

Brennan nodded. She knew.

She sighed, "At any rate, these cases here have become a bit of an obsession of mine. Hard to see things like this happening to other people. Still harder to see it happening in places where genocides and wars aren't going on. It's my dream to catch the sonovabitch responsible and pull him off the streets for the rest of his life."

"Bones can make that happen," a voice from the doorway interjected.

They turned.

"This your partner?" Marshall asked.

"Yes," Brennan said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Seeley Booth, Elizabeth Marshall. She's thrown us a wrinkle."

"Curve-ball, Bones. Or 'put a new wrinkle in things.' "

"Close enough." She walked over to him and the three began walking toward the elevator, the file clutched in her hands. "At any rate, Dr. Marshall has information you're going to want to hear."

"Something tells me I'm not going to like this."

"You won't."

The elevator doors shut.

--

"This was Carrie Patel," Marshall said, handing a photo first to Brennan and then to Booth. She had already gone over the basic COD data, to which Booth had probably begun compiling his gut-feelings into something hopefully coherent. "She worked for the newspaper as a sort of freelance reporter. Researched stories independent of the regular blood-suckers and sold 'em on up. Sort of like a PI who tells the client's secrets to the whole world."

The woman in the picture was Caucasian with dark brown hair, her nose thin and straight. Her cheekbones were not particularly noticeable, nor was her jaw, and her eyes were a smoky blue that probably had been hard to read even for someone who was good at that sort of thing. A small grin pulled at her lips, as if the picture-taker had said something amusing but not hilarious before snapping the shot.

"She ever piss anyone off?" Booth asked.

"No," Pete answered. "She was well-liked. And once the sadistic nature of her murder came to light, the idea of a personal grudge turned sour sort of fell off the radar."

"And Carol knocked the last doubts we had out of the water," Marshall added.

Wow. Three clichés in under ten seconds.

Brennan refocused.

"Carrie had two brothers and her mother, none of whom had contact with her the day of her disappearance," Marshall continued. "They didn't know anything."

"Shouldn't I be handling this part?" Pete asked. "I talked to them, not you."

"But I remember all this stuff. You always were better at the investigations then the little details."

"I do have notes."

"And I have my brain. My brain beats paper notes."

"Fine." He held up his hands. "Continue."

She grinned at him, "Just correct me if I say something wrong." She turned back to Brennan and Booth. "Her work relationships were cordial, but since she mostly worked alone there weren't many people to talk to."

"Who reported her missing?" Booth asked.

"Brother. They all had plans to watch the Game."

"What Game?" Brennan asked.

Three pairs of eyes rolled painfully to hers.

"What?"

"Football, Bones," Booth said. "Football."

"Oh." She said nothing further.

"She was a huge fan of both the playing teams," Marshall went on. "so when she didn't show up, the family worried, sent out a mini-search party, a telephone line, and she couldn't be found. Reported her missing the next day."

Nods all around.

The anthropologist opened a second file. "This is Carol. Carol Sorrentino." She pulled out another photo and handed it around.

This picture featured an older looking woman, her hair graying, the start of heavy lines around her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were a warm and level green, and her nose was crooked, as if it had every intention of being straight but had gotten sidetracked somewhere along the way. She had small pink lips and, at least in this photo, she wore no make-up. There was an air of friendliness to her that Brennan found appealing.

"Carol joint-owned a small restaurant that used to be in town called Strings with her husband, James," Marshall said. "He closed it down after she disappeared. If I remember, he had been working part-time as a teacher at the local college when Carol was found." She glanced at Pete for confirmation, and he nodded. "I don't know what he's doing now, however."

Pete said, "I'll look into it."

She nodded. "Carol was reported missing by James. She missed their anniversary."

Quiet. There wasn't an idea much more depressing than realizing one's spouse had disappeared on a wedding anniversary.

Marshall continued, "She was one of those people no one had anything bad to say about. Not a blemish on her driving record, excellent grades in school, and all of her friends were equally nice and friendly. The restaurant's success had also been attributed to her charm." She exhaled. "She was a good person."

Nods.

Booth spoke, "If it's alright with you, I'd like to reinterview the families and friends. You know, jog their memories, maybe see if there are any memories that have surfaced over the years."

Marshall held up a hand, "Hey, I'm not a cop."

Pete nodded, "I'll go with you, Booth. We can interview together."

"Bones, you wanna come?" he looked at her.

Brennan opened her mouth and closed it. She hated dealing with families once or twice per case, but doing it many times in a single day would be a drain on both her psyche and physical health. It also messed with her objectivity, and if one of her obviously capable colleagues had found nothing, having an emotional veil over her eyes could only cause problems.

"You don't have to, Bones," he said kindly. "I understand if you don't want to."

She nodded, feeling surprisingly relieved at his flexibility.

He looked at Pete, "You have current addresses for all of these people?"

The Sheriff shook his head. "Don't know. We have to call first to let them know we're coming."

Marshall glanced from them to Brennan. "Why don't we go out to lunch while the boys handle this? We can't do anything for them here, and I can't work on an empty stomach."

Brennan nodded and they both rose.

"See you guys later," Marshall said.

Both men looked up and nodded.

"Have fun," Booth said.

"Don't talk about me too much," Pete added.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself," Marshall said with a small smile as she opened the door. "There are much more attractive men than yourself."

"Always a flatterer."

She pursed her lips in that small grin, shook her head, and walked out, Brennan following after saying goodbye to her own partner.

"Want some Indian food?" Marshall asked.

Brennan nodded, "Yes. Please."

She smiled and they set off.

--

"Tell me about yourself," Brennan said unceremoniously as she and Marshall slid into a booth in India Oven, an Indian place wedged between three shopping centers, a gym, a Starbucks, and a statue of some sort of mining contraption.

"What?" the anthropologist looked at her with confusion. "Oh...Why?"

"Well, if we're going to be working together, I might as well know more about you."

"You mean my creds? Want to check me out? Make sure I'm qualified?"

"Well, I can tell you're qualified, but it would be nice to know your stats."

"I can tell you that."

She waited, glancing up from the menu.

Marshall inhaled, laying palms on the table. "I got into anthropology during high school back when history was backwards and humanities teachers still said 'primitive' artwork and culture. Naturally, I was completely unprepared for my first prof, who stripped out half of my vocabulary and installed about a gazillion new terms."

Brennan smiled, remembering her own first experience.

"I was into cultural anthropology from the start. If you had said 'forensic anthropology' to me during my first two years of undergrad work, I wouldn't know what you were talking about. I went through the whole 'narrowing down the field' thing and chose archeology for reasons still unknown to me. Probably because it was the cool thing to do, or because I had finally realized I wasn't going to be the next Malinowski."

Brennan took a sip of water, "What? You had plans to do fieldwork in New Guinea?"

"I admit, I was tempted by that thought. But then I realized that a career almost purely based on immersing myself in fieldwork would drive me insane. I always found I loved to go in, but would later get extremely homesick or restless and feel the overwhelming urge to leave. I guess the thought of traveling around, but not staying anywhere too long and being out of home for long—it appealed to me." She grabbed her water and took a gulp at the same moment a waitress appeared.

Marshall swallowed quickly and said the thing that had caught Brennan's attention: a corma. She said to get two, and while Marshall ordered it spicy, she opted for mild.

"Making a mistake," Marshall said.

Brennan shrugged. "I'm sure," she inhaled and ordered a mango lassi before switching back to their prior conversation, "While you were doing the cultural routine, what was your favorite viewpoint?"

"What?" she looked confused again.

Brennan went with an example. "I was a materialist with shades of technological determinism."

She grinned, "Oh, those were the _cool_ things to believe in."

"No. No. I always liked those arguments."

"Too easy. Environment and technology create culture. In with the Harris crowd?"

"Yes," she nodded. "So what were you?"

"Humanist—"

"And you think _I'm_ going the easy route?" she stared and laughed.

"Well, I could've said postmodernist just to freak you out, but..."

Brennan's eyes widened.

"Kidding. No. I had a very memorable humanist for an anthropology prof. You had a materialist?"

She nodded. Oh, yes. There had been a few fights between him and his non-materialist students before. Brennan, being young, had been absorbed by his musings instead of pissed off.

"Yeah, I had problems when I went into the biological side of anthropology. Everyone was materialist or similar. Or worse. When I went into archeology I ran into some hardcore diffusionists." She shuddered while Brennan snorted. "Those were tough times, there."

She laughed.

"But, at any rate, I gave up the idea of being an archaeologist as well. I found it to be overly impersonal while speculative at the same time. You know what I mean?"

She nodded, "Putting the remains in boxes while telling long-winded heart-wrenching tales about their lives?"

"Yes. Exactly. What, were you an archaeologist?"

"For a time. Never loved it as much as I wanted to."

She nodded, "I didn't either. That's probably why I left, when it comes down to it. Around then I discovered forensic anthropology, so I changed my emphasis in my major, began taking loads of physical sciences, and found I loved it. Stayed with it for a while." She inhaled. "As a result of my bouncing around, I seem to have some qualifications in everything but linguistics." She took another sip of water. "So tell me about yourself."

Brennan leaned back, bringing her mango lassi with her. "Well, I went in through the biological sciences. I discovered anthropology through evolution and anatomy. By the time I started taking classes on culture I was hopelessly enamored with the field. Changed my major from biology to anthropology and never looked back. I didn't change a whole lot, but I experimented with everything. I was too impatient to be an applied anthropologist, and too opinionated to be a good fieldwork ethnologist. Nonetheless, I did a lot of fieldwork, realized I had an interest in burial practices and death rites, and did some further work on those subjects. After a few stints in archeology where I was allowed to work with human remains, I discovered I had a knack for reading bones. From then on, whenever we went on digs I would always be the one in charge of any bones found—animal or human.

"At the same time, I nursed an interest in the _why_ of human interaction, which is what anthropology seeks to answer anyway, and I became a sort of half-sociologist since I preferred to study cities and universities rather than peoples out in the Sahara. At the time, anthropology was still absorbed with the pre-modern societies, so I was one of the odd ones in class."

"Did you ever go out to the Bush?"

"You mean, out to those remote non-industrialized societies? Yes. Many, both as an archaeologist and an ethnographer. But I also did a lot of urban studies."

"How the hell did you have time for all this?"

She shrugged, "Small group of friends, no family, so I had nothing to anchor me here. It was expensive, even with my grants and scholarships, but I lived in an overpopulated dorm and volunteered in the university's lab. I admit, I did almost nothing but schoolwork for most of my educational life, but I enjoyed it so it never bothered me." She drank a large portion of her lassi.

"Then I went back to my old love, osteology, when I finally gave up on the idea of being an ethnologist. Excelled to the top very quickly, discovered forensic anthropology, and that became my sole focus from then on." She looked up as two bowls were set in front of them, as well as two large plates of white rice.

"Do you miss cultural anthropology and archeology?"

Brennan shook her head, "I still get invited on digs by old classmates, and I fear I've become an empiricist during my time as a scientist, and the idea of arguing over the question of the origin of culture—a question that is ultimately unanswerable—now seems both silly and counterproductive. I love getting answers too much."

She nodded.

"What about you, Dr. Marshall? Do you miss it?"

"Call me Liz, Dr. Brennan."

"Then call me Brennan."

"Alright." She smiled. "And to answer your question, no, I don't. I still spend most of my time running around from place to place, digging bodies up and ordering around whole groups of people to do it exactly as I want it done. Like you, I have nothing anchoring me."

"Don't you also teach?"

"Yeah. During the off-periods, or when I'm feeling homesick. I do advanced osteology and training in forensic protocol and lab etiquette."

Brennan tasted the corma, found it to be delicious, and dumped a few huge spoonfulls of rice in with it before eating more. "What's your relationship with Pete?"

"What do you mean?"

"You interact like you know each other pretty well."

"Yeah," she was already working her way through her food. "I've known Pete since high school. He always thought anthropology was a phase for me, even after I moved away for school or fieldwork. Still does." She snorted.

"Ever intimate?"

Her eyes shot up. "Not very delicate, are you?" She didn't give time for Brennan to reply. "Yeah, we've rolled in the sheets a few times, but it was never anything serious. Then he got married, and we went back to the old arrangement where he and I cracked jokes over our respective careers." She inhaled and chewed more corma, downing it with a generous gulp of water. "What about you?"

"Me what?"

"You and your partner. Anything there?"

Brennan shook her head, "No. We're just partners."

"And he seriously lets you run around the field like a cop?"

"Yes."

Her eyebrows crinkled together. "Isn't that dangerous?"

In her mind, she flashed back to Kenton, dogs, and an old warehouse before forcefully bringing herself back to the present. "Sometimes."

"Well, I am very impressed. I feel honored to work with you, Brennan."

"And I as well, Liz."

They shook hands.

"And you know what, I think we have met before," she continued.

"We have?" Liz looked up.

"Yes. A dig in El Salvador. I was working semi-independently with two other coworkers and there was a group of graduate students in another pit nearby, and I believe you were handling them."

"When was this?"

She thought. "Not long ago. Not even two years."

"Hm."

"I went over and visited once."

"Oh," she said suddenly. "I offered you some help and you refused. Yes, I remember now." She paused. "But you left suddenly. I remember going over to reinstate my offer and you had disappeared. The well you were working on was empty, and the camp had been flattened."

"Yeah," her eyes clouded over darkly. "Yeah, I wasn't there."

She eyed her. "Where were you?"

She inhaled, "That's something I'd rather not think about."

Liz's eyebrows rose, "Okay. Sorry." She drank more water, draining it. "Let's talk about our food."

"That sounds good."

Grinning, Liz began listing all of her favorite restaurants in all of her favorite countries, which, as it turned out, was a very long list. When it was her turn, Brennan contributed, and by the time they were done they had stuffed themselves, begged off dessert, eaten it anyway, and driven back to the morgue, where they got back to work.

"Here are all the bones with knife marks," Liz said, laying vertebrae, clavicles, and a single ulna on a small table near an electron scope—an object Brennan had been shocked to see in a morgue of this size, but had not asked its origin. She then turned around, reached onto the counter, and picked up a file. "I did all the standard pics and comparisons, so if you want to check my results out of professional whatever, you can do that. But if you don't," she handed it to Brennan. "and trust me, we can move on to the knife. Possibly have Julia's weapon matched to it by the end of a few hours."

She nodded, "I trust you, but I'd like to take a look at the knife marks myself. Get a feel for the weapon. You understand?"

Liz nodded. "Then one moment please." She walked back to the storage closet where she had originally retrieved the remains of Carrie and Carol's skeletons and pulled out two additional boxes. Once she had them, she set them on a free table and began taking out labeled plastic bags. "Feel free to start looking through them."

Brennan did. Liz set the baggies on separate tables so as not to confuse them, and Brennan went to the table closest to her and picked up a bag. It was labeled with morgue number, date, name, anatomical location, and side, and inside was a thin blue cast with an almost puddy-ish look to it. Slipping on gloves, she slid the cast out and held it up to the light.

"Brennan?"

She looked over.

Liz stood next to Julia, a pair of latex gloves on her raised hands. "What do you say I cast her bones while you look at the cut marks for the other two?"

She nodded. She usually looked over Zack's work when he had finished casting, and Liz obviously knew what she was doing. She wasn't nearly as territorial as she had been two years ago, a time when she would've insisted on doing it herself just because she would have trusted no one else to do it as well.

Although, she thought as she began hearing the clattering of Liz moving around several large tubes of dental impression, Having Angela around to do 3-D reconstructions was certainly a novelty that she missed when she went to outside morgues.

She focused her thoughts and took hold of the bone table, wheeling it over to a place where she could sit. The impressions would take Liz at least an hour and a half, possibly more, even though there were only two bones to deal with. The dental impression goo would be a pain to mix and she did not envy the other anthropologist her work. However, there was also the matter of looking at the casted bones, and a full-scale examination would take even longer than the casting process itself. Knowing all of this, Brennan wanted to ensure she would be at least moderately comfortable while she worked.

Her first impression was from Carrie—the clavicle.

The cut went deep into the bone, but, due either to force or the weapon itself, it had not gone all the way through, leaving a trough in the bone. Consequently, it had created, in essence, a false start—possibly the most useful of the all marks that sharp force trauma could leave on bone. A file had accompanied each of the boxes, but Brennan pulled out a fresh set of papers to write her observations on. If both sets of data matched, it would not only be stronger come trial, but allow both of them to trust each other's results.

Sighing, she measured the marks on the physical bone, recording the width, depth, length, and position on the paper. Then it was time for the molds and the scope.

The molds created a sort of topographical representation of the cut-mark. As she looked, she was glad that she wasn't dealing with a saw, which would've created much more complicated patterns in the bone. This wound was characterized by a straight line. It was neat, tidy, clean, and very straight. At this level of magnification and detail, she could see the shape of the blade itself as a V and narrow. Very typical of a knife.

She fiddled with the knobs and looked at the cut again. Although it was controversial, some of the anthropologists in her field said that the difference between a serrated and a non-serrated blade could be seen in the shape of the cut-marks it left on the bone. Although difficult to differentiate, her eyes eventually picked out a T-pattern from the surrounding topography. If past studies and experience were to be trusted, this was probably a non-serrated blade.

She switched molds and repeated the process for all of the casts, switching occasionally to the real bone counterparts for comparison. What she discovered was that all of the cut marks were more or less the same, and the damage seemed to be consistent throughout. By the time she was finished with Carrie and Carol, Liz had finished with Julia's bones and she did a third painstaking analysis.

Her results told the same story: medium-sized non-serrated blade used first to break the collarbone and then, some days later, slice the throat. The killer was left-handed and used a great deal of force while attacking, for even the vertebrae cuts were deep. The attack pattern was distinctive and the the wounds gave the impression that the same knife was used consistently.

"So what's your verdict?" Liz asked as Brennan finally rose from her chair.

"I concur with everything you wrote, including your speculation on the make of the blade," she said, stretching and then rolling her arms. "And I agree," she inhaled. "This looks like the same guy."

"Wonderful," a voice that wasn't Liz's said. "As if this day couldn't get any more shitty."

Brennan looked over at her partner, who sat in a seat beside the door to the hall. His suit was rumpled and looked listless, like its wearer. Booth was tired, his normally charm-filled eyes clouded over and his jaw set in annoyance.

"Bad day?" she asked.

"I've been spending the entire day talking to grieving families." He inhaled, "So, yeah, bad day."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know how hard that is on you."

"I'll be fine after some, you know, dinner and pie. Assuming there is pie around here."

"I'm sure there is." She looked down, flipping her watch hand. "What time is it?"

"Around eight," Liz said, not glancing at her watch.

She exhaled.

"There are still restaurants open at this hour," the anthropologist continued. "But I'm afraid the best place for pie is closed right now. You could get some early tomorrow, though."

Booth exhaled.

"Or, if you want chocolate, there's a fabulous restaurant a little way from here. I mean, honestly, the best chocolate thing I've ever had. Even if you're not big on chocolate, this thing is amazing."

Brennan looked up, her interest piqued, feeling some hope that the day would not end on a depressing note. "Keep talking."

"It's a South American place maybe ten minutes from here. Excellent food if you like that style, but even if you don't, you can go for the chocolate soufflé thing. I do that sometimes. They also serve real tea."

"Real tea?" Booth asked.

"You know, the actual fresh plants put into a net and into the water. Not ground or dried. Fresh. It's amazing. Only way to drink tea if you're really in the mood."

"Where is this South American place?" Brennan asked, now definitely interested.

"I'll direct you there."

"You mean, you're not eating with us?"

She shook her head. "I'm tired, not really hungry, and I have a hotel to look forward to."

"Why?"

"Chico's an hour something away from here. I am not dealing with driving tonight. And besides, I'll only need to come back tomorrow."

"Okay," she nodded and the three of them walked out, Booth taking the rear.

"So what's the name of this restaurant?"

"Diego's."

"Sounds good."

Booth had only one objection, "Am I even going to be apart of the decision making process?"

"Nope," Brennan said.

The two women shared a laugh as the elevator doors shut.

--

"Okay," Brennan muttered, staring at the menu and only half-registering that she was worrying a thumbnail with her teeth. "So, Liz said to get something smaller because the portions are large here." She looked up, noting how dark the candlelight made Booth's eyes look. "What are you getting?"

"Er...This." He gestured at a grilled meat and vegetables dish.

She crinkled her eyebrows at him, the thumbnail pausing between her teeth.

"What?"

"Didn't you tell me you had a burger for lunch?"

"So?"

She lowered her hand and looked back down at the menu. "Nothing."

He exhaled, "You know, women always say 'nothing' but they really mean something, and then, you know, you do something and then that 'nothing' becomes a huge explosion."

"Always, huh?" she skimmed the menu, mentally translating things into English. The style here was Chilean, and Liz had also said that there were a lot of exotic spices and peppers—both of which were used heavily. Although adventurous when it came to food, something that her field studies had proven, Brennan ultimately decided to play it safe. After all, Indian and Chilean food was a combo she wasn't sure her stomach would appreciate.

Her decision was a small wrap.

She closed the menu.

"Decided?" Booth asked.

"Yes."

"Good."

"Mm," she inhaled. Diego's was lit mostly by candlelight and sconces, and at this time of night, that meant it had very low lighting. The air smelled of breads and spices, and the west wall was covered with a large map of Chile and other parts of South America. Space-wise, it was small, perhaps only a little over the size of her living room, and it overlooked Colfax Highway. Quiet Latin music oozed from the speakers, audible even over the low murmurings of other customers in the restaurant.

"Ready?" a waiter asked as he poured water into glasses. "Or do you still need a sec?"

"I'm ready," she said and gave him the name of her dish, ordering a tea as well. When prompted, she requested Jasmine. Booth ordered the dish he had originally been looking at with an ice tea. The waiter nodded and walked away, and her partner eyed her.

"What's with the scrunchy face?"

"What?" she looked at him, her attention diverted from the flowers she had been staring at. "I don't have a scrunchy face."

"Yes you do. You were judging."

"I was not judging."

"Yes you were. I know that look."

"What look? I don't have a look."

He sighed. "Maybe not now, but you did."

"I sense this is a bad conversational road to go down."

He muttered something under his breath.

She ignored that. "So let's change the subject. Tell me what you found today."

He leaned back. "Not much."

"That's not very specific."

He exhaled. "Well..."

"Here you are," the waiter interrupted, setting a small plate on the table, which was covered with small buns. Beside the plate he placed a dish full of what appeared to be butter and a second full of salsa. Saliva poured into Brennan's mouth.

"I'll be back with your tea in a moment," he said, looking at Brennan, taking a tall glass of ice tea from the large plate in his hand and putting it next to Booth. Then he headed around back.

Brennan stole a sip of the iced tea before her partner had a chance to react. "Well, what?" she asked, loving the bitter-sweetness as it slid down her throat.

"Bones, you know, you could at least ask before you help yourself to my drink."

"I wanted something sweet. The water wasn't doing it for me."

He held up a finger, looking as if he was about to make a point, but sighed instead and ripped off the wrapper for a straw. Slipping it into his drink, he swirled the ice around. "Well, first Pete and I visited the now all-male family of Carrie Patel." He noted the question mark on her face. "Carrie only had brothers and her mother died last year."

Brennan nodded, taking a piece of bread, opening it, and spreading some butter inside. The bread was warm and the butter was a garlic butter. It melted in her mouth and she eagerly tore into it for more.

"Anyway, they didn't have anything for me. It was a while ago, so specific details were mostly fuzzy. We didn't have anything to prompt them on, so they just went through the memories like they did on the original interview. Bottom line, nothing. But we told them we'd be in touch." He took his piece of bread.

"You really think we're going to find anything?"

He shrugged and took a long drink from his straw. "You know as well as I do that cases like these are always chancy. We could find something, we could not. You never know."

She looked up as her tea was set in front of her and thanked the waiter, who then disappeared. "Forensically, there doesn't seem to be much to work with. At least we know the killer's smart."

"Yeah."

"Did you track down any of Carol's family?"

He nodded. "Parents died in an auto accident a while ago. Father was driving, he was over eighty. Doc's said that his meds probably made him woozy and when he got behind the wheel, he drove into a tree."

"Oh," she swirled her tea and inhaled its light scent.

"Probably for the best. They didn't need this whole thing reopened now."

"Did you find the husband?" What was his name? John?

"James? Yeah, that's who we talked to."

She was close.

"No. Carol just went for car repair a few days before she went missing. That was all he remembered that was new."

"Why would the husband remember that?"

He shrugged. "Got a new car. He felt guilty about it, so he mentioned it. Psychology, Bones."

She rolled her eyes.

"Anyway," Booth continued. "I think I'm just going to look over old notes, see if there's anything at all that the investigators did that I wouldn't have done."

"And then what?" she met his eyes, eating more bread.

"And then we talk to people."

At that moment, their food was set in front of them.

Booth already had fork in hand and was stabbing something.

"Need anything else?" the waiter asked.

"No," Brennan said, shaking her head.

He nodded and left.

"Did you ask Pete if my role in the field was a problem?" she asked Booth, also beginning to eat.

He shook his head and didn't speak until he had swallowed his mouthful. "He officially turned it over to us. Said as long as you didn't shoot anyone, it was okay."

Her eyebrows creased. "That sounds like something you would say."

"Okay, maybe I said it, but I know he was thinking it."

"Uh huh." She chewed. The food was exotic and her tastebuds had a lot to sift through. Very heavily flavorful, but in the way that many spices and vegetables mixed together produced rather than the richness of the flowers in her tea. "So I assume this means you are not giving me a gun?"

"Nope."

"Not even once?"

"Nope."

"What if I need to shoot someone? We're not familiar with the area."

He shrugged. "Then I'll shoot him."

"What if you're incapacitated? And how do you know it's not going to be a she?"

"Whatever, Bones. I get the gun, you get the morgue. We'll both be happy."

"You know, one day I may just get a gun on my own."

"And one day Zack will get a date."

She glared.

"It's true."

"You don't know that."

"Of course I do. I know these things, Bones."

Rolling her eyes, she said, "So tomorrow we talk to people?"

"Tomorrow we talk to people."

Joy.

They didn't talk about the case for the rest of their dinner.

--

The next morning, Brennan got up and headed to the drawers she had transferred most of her clothing into, the rest having gone into the closet. She sighed. Even on extended trips she only ever brought two, three, or even four necklaces. She was already at the point where she would have to start remixing and matching to give the vague illusion that what she was wearing was completely different than the day before. Today, however, she decided to not wear a necklace, and, instead, wear only earrings.

They were pretty trapezoidal shapes, with small designs etched on both the front and back. She had haggled it down from a price she wasn't happy with during a stay in Turkey many years ago, when she was still a grad student. The memory made her zone out for a moment as she popped them on, remembering a time when she had believed that cultural anthropology was going to be her mainstay in life.

A knock on the door brought her crashing back to reality.

"Bones?"

She exhaled. Some days she thought it really would've been better if she had stayed out in the field, wandering the streets like a migrant, studying people like ants in a glass case. Ah, those were the days. No money, no goals, just study.

Damn, she missed that.

"Bones?"

As she walked to the door, she wondering vaguely what would happen if she decided to apply anthropology to every one of Booth's actions. And then voice them. Every thought that crossed her mind, every mild analysis, every possible explanation. He had called her annoying before, but she wasn't quite as oblivious as he seemed to think she was. She knew he didn't particularly want to hear it, so she kept observations to herself. At least, some of them.

"Bo—"

She opened the door mid-word, and his mouth was frozen in a "O" shape for a moment before it collapsed into an easy smile.

"Hey, Bones," he held up a plastic bag. "I got our bagels."

Maybe she'd spare him the anthropology, she thought, allowing him entry as her stomach reminded her of its needs. After all, he had food. And a gun she could potentially blackmail out of him. Annoying him too badly could screw up her negotiations.

Though she had to admit, it was amusing to watch him get all blustery at her words. He may have the badge and the gun, but she had the power to annoy him incessantly. Words nagged and egged, especially if they rang true, so even if she wasn't around she knew he would likely be brooding over her words and trying fruitlessly to come up with a rebuttal she wouldn't see coming.

Not that her main goal in communications with Booth was to amuse herself. That was just collateral.

"Bones?" Booth himself cut into her musings. "What'cha pondering up there?"

"Up where?" she asked automatically, still processing his words.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

He rolled his eyes, "Didn't we just discuss this 'nothing' thing last night?"

"We did?" she replied absently, reaching for a bagel. She remembered, but only vaguely.

"Yes. We did."

"Really? I must not have been paying attention."

"You always pay attention."

"Apparently not, if I can't remember what you're talking about."

He exhaled and reached for the knife she was using to spread cream cheese with. She handed it to him.

"Bones?"

She looked up, noting that he looked like he was pondering something himself.

"What?" she asked.

"You ever notice we seem to spend most of our time together either eating or working?"

She shrugged, "We're work partners, so the latter would be expected. And often we discuss work while eating, or the food is brought in while we're working. So if you think about it, it makes sense."

"Hm."

"Why?"

"Why what?" his hand paused in the spreading.

"What prompted that question?"

"Dunno," he shrugged. "I guess it just felt kind of strange to me that those are the only things we ever really do together."

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated. "Don't you find it strange as well?"

"Not really. I have enough vacation days saved to theoretically take several weeks off. The fact that I haven't taken them yet is a good example of how often I put work over a personal life. Although you've made allusions to the fact that you'd like a break, you have yet to take a very long one that wasn't forced upon you because of sickness or an injury. I mean, we've both worked on national holidays. Considering how much time we both spend working, the time spent at home or doing other activities is fairly limited. If we spent time together even then, we'd have to be living together or something close to it."

"Oh," he said. "See, when you put it like that it makes sense..." his voice trailed off. "And makes us both look pretty pathetic."

"Eh," she made a noncommittal noise. "Just goal-orientated."

"This is one of those 'glass is half empty' scenarios isn't it?" he asked as they bit down simultaneously on their bagels.

"Mm," she replied. "Yes. But I find it to be true that personal perception can affect one's attitudes towards certain ideas and concepts."

"What?" he added more cream cheese to his bite.

"When I took linguistics, there was some fairly heavy emphasis on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which stated, in the vernacular, that language influences culture. The most amusing anecdote used to illustrate the concept was the maintenance man who threw his cigarette butt into a barrel marked 'empty' but was subsequently blown up."

"Why?"

"There were fumes still left in the barrel from the chemicals they had once contained. Supposedly, because the English language lacks a word for this phenomena, or, at least, a readily accessible one, the thought that it would have potentially blown him up never occurred to him."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"What happened to the guy?"

She blinked and connected the dots. "Oh, there was no guy. It was just a scenario."

"Oh."

"Though I think, as the story goes, he died." She paused. "I guess it wasn't all that amusing after all."

"Nope." He consumed the last of his bagel as she did. "Damn, we should get going."

"Going where?" she asked, rising.

"Interviews. Julia's friends. See if anything was up."

"Ah." She made to head out the door.

"Bones?"

"What?" she turned.

"It's raining outside."

"It is?" she walked back over to him and peaked out a window. True enough, rain was coming down in thin sheets, covering cars as they disappeared into fog. "Guess I should bring a coat."

"Yep. That would be good."

She rolled her eyes, opened her closet, and pulled out her trench coat. Shrugging it on, she grabbed her purse, slipped it over a shoulder and walked to the door.

"After you, Bones," Booth said.

"No, after you," she said.

"Alright." He walked through.

"Doesn't chivalry indicate that you should wait for me?"

"Didn't your anthropological lecture the other night indicate that you are essentially a man, and I am essentially a woman, and that sexist behavior is bad and blah blah blah?"

She smiled, "I take your point."

"Good."

They walked into the elevator together.

"So, where are we going again?" Brennan asked once they had gotten into the car and pulled onto 49. "Or did you ever tell me to begin with?"

"I didn't. And we're going to talk to Julia's friends."

"Where?"

"That retirement home, Quail Ridge."

Her eyebrows crinkled. "Her friends are retirees?"

"No. Her friends work _with_ the retirees. They also work there, so that's why we need to go there."

"Oh."

"Yeah," he exhaled.

The car lapsed into silence and aside from the rain, which alternated between sprinkling and pouring, it wasn't broken until they had reached the building.

Quail Ridge squatted atop a hill, flanked by blacktop and concrete for parking spaces, and held in by a wrought iron fence. Plants were contained by boxes and small trees were held up by wooden poles thrust deep into the ground—pathetic considering the fact that if one looked up one could see the mountains and the thousands of trees that coated its surface in the distance. Hell, just a few yards from the entrance a massive pine stretched into a sky obscured by fog and rain.

Booth pulled up to the blacktop and easily found a parking spot within feet from the entrance.

"You know what I like about rural places, Bones?" he asked, hopping out of the car as she did.

"The absence of your boss?" she guessed, not really listening as she dodged under the building's cover in an effort to avoid the rain..

"No," he replied, joining her under the safety of the building. "Parking."

"Ah," she snorted. "Yes, I remember how much you used to gripe about Jeffersonian parking."

"And you _still_ won't get me my own space."

"Yeah, well, you won't let me drive, so I guess we both have issues with each other when it comes to our driving."

He held up a finger, but whatever argument that came to him must have passed before he could voice it.

"Mm-hm," she said triumphantly, stepping on the rug at the entrance to the retirement home, which caused the double doors to slide open and allow them entry. "See? You don't even have a rebuttal."

"Yes I do, Bones."

"You do, huh?"

"Yes."

"Well, what is it?"

"Touché."

She snorted.

"Ha. Got you there."

Her eyebrows creased. "No you didn't. Touché means that you essentially conceded to the fact that my gripe was just as valid as yours."

He scoffed.

"In fact, _I_ got you there, considering you could only concede to the validity of my gripe."

"Ugh."

"And now _you_ don't have a rebuttal to _that._"

"You know you say it like it's such a victory..." he turned, shaking his head, and froze.

Brennan followed his line of sight and realized there were two women staring at them with a mixture of confusion and bemusement.

"Can I help you?" the tallest of the two asked, her dark skin contrasting lightly with her gray-green eyes.

"Yeah," Booth said, switching smoothly into professional-mode. "We're looking for someone."

"A patient?"

"No," he shook his head. "Actually, I'm looking for two employees. Mary Lamon and Ruth Benson?"

"That's us." The taller woman's companion said. "Why? Did something happen?" She suddenly looked nervous.

"Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

She stiffened.

"It's about Julia Beldon."

"Oh." The taller one exhaled. "Julie."

"Yeah." Her companion said. "There's an empty patient's room where we can talk. It'll be most private."

They led them to it quietly, only introducing themselves. The taller one was Ruth and her companion was Mary. Once they were there, Mary shut the door as the rest of them settled on seats by an empty bed.

"So I assume this means you guys finally found Julie?" Ruth asked.

"Why would you assume we found her?" Booth asked as Mary took a seat across from him.

"She's been gone for two years. Woman like that doesn't just up and leave."

"What kind of woman was she?"

"Kind, fair. Kind of reserved. Sort of impatient for someone working in a retirement home. But she had good intentions."

"What happened to her?" Mary asked.

"She...died."

"Died?" Ruth repeated. "Poor Julie."

"How?"

Booth glanced at Brennan, who mouthed _'What?'_

"She was killed," he said.

Ruth inhaled sharply.

"How?" Mary asked. "Who? Do you know?"

"Must've been that bastard, Mark."

Booth looked at Ruth. "What?"

"Oh," Mary said.

"What?" Brennan said.

"Mark. Mark Simmons."

They waited.

"Julie's last boyfriend of any consequence," Ruth said. "It wasn't...It was bad."

"What do you mean?" Brennan asked. "He was abusive?"

"Well, not at first. But she noticed that late at night he would leave, and not come back until the next day."

"Really touchy about where he'd been," Mary said.

"She asked him. But he wouldn't tell her. Hit her when she got too adamant."

Brennan felt heat begin to rise in her collar.

"She followed him one day," Ruth continued. "And...He went to a hotel. She found him in a lip-lock with twenty-something cashier at Safeway."

"Beat the crap out of her when she confronted him. We told her to break it off or we'd break him for her."

"She left him, moved, switched numbers. Got a restraining order. She was pretty freaked."

"Maybe not as much as she should have been," Mary muttered.

"Did you tell the police about him when she went missing?"

"No...No..." Ruth's voice trailed off and she looked up again to meet Booth's eyes. "At the time I almost felt as if she had seen him again and ran away. That she would be back after she felt safe again." She looked at Brennan. "Is it my fault she's gone?"

Brennan looked at Booth.

"No," he said, placing a hand on her own. "No. It's not. There's nothing you could have done to prevent this."

She placed her hand over his and squeezed.

Then she cried.

--

Although I understand that there are not a lot of people reading, and my updates aren't exactly fast, I would still like to take a moment to request reviews. This story was an almost three month project, and I spent a lot of time and effort on it. It is difficult for me to continue updating if I am not even sure anyone cares to read.

If you are reading, please leave a review. It will only take you a few seconds and it means a lot to me. If you find anything even mildly interesting, amusing, or having caused even a slight emotional response, I would appreciate it if you tell me so.

Please?

\/


	5. Red Flags

--

_Chapter Five_

--

"So, Mark—can I call you Mark?" Booth asked, hitting the man across the table with a file as he paced.

"Call me what you want, man," he said without looking at him. He was staring at Brennan.

"Hey, don't look at her, look at me. I'm the one who's talking to you." He turned Simmons' chair around violently so that the man was forced to look at him. "There. That's better. Don't you think, Bones?"

She nodded, but said nothing.

Two days had passed since their interview at Quail Ridge. It had been spent looking for this man, who had been found in another county. Brennan had spent most of that time doing nothing, as she was unable to do anything at this juncture since the forensic evidence was used up.

But now they had a suspect.

The interrogation room had originally been an abandoned office, and Booth had spent the day adjusting the lights, the chairs, and the room to fit his needs. There was no two-way mirror to watch through. Hell, there wasn't a one-way mirror. Brennan had opted for coming into the room rather than just listening to a headset. She was starting to wonder if that was the wisest decision considering the fact that if she got too angry with this guy she may end up hitting him.

But she could control herself.

Possibly.

If she felt like it.

"So, Mark, wanna tell me what you were doing at Strings only a month before Carol Sorrentino disappeared?"

"What?"

Booth dropped the file onto the table and pulled out a photo, sliding it over so that Simmons could see it.

"Attractive," he noted. "Who is she?"

"Carol Sorrentino. The woman you held, raped, and tortured for over a week."

"What? Whoa, man, I didn't kill anyone."

Booth silently slid a photo of Carol _in situ_ across the table.

"Look." He slid the photo back. "Flattered you'd think of me, but I didn't do it."

"Flattered?" Brennan repeated.

"Yeah," his dark blue eyes met hers. "Flattered."

She bristled.

"Hey. I told you to look at me," Booth said, turning Simmons' head roughly by the chin. "Not her."

"What? She's attractive."

"And she was too?" he asked, dropping a photo of Julia onto the table. "That why you smashed her head in with your fist?"

"She was asking for it."

"Why? Because she caught you cheating?" Brennan asked.

Simmons glanced at her but didn't reply.

"So what were you doing at Strings, huh?"

"Eating lunch, I would imagine."

"Did you talk to Carol Sorrentino?"

"How would I know? When did this even happen, anyway?"

"Four years ago."

"How do you know I was even there?"

"Check on your financials turned it up. So, you know, one abusive guy, two dead women, it put up some red flags."

"Coincidence."

"There are no coincidences in a murder investigation, Mark," Booth said, slapping him lightly upside the head. "Don't you watch the movies?"

"Hey, man! Stop it!"

"Why? Tough enough only to dish out punishment but never receive it?"

He clenched his jaw.

"So, have an alibi for any of these dates?" Booth asked, slapping a paper onto the table.

"No. I don't know. These were years ago."

"So you don't?"

"It's too long ago to remember exact dates, man. Call my workplace. Check to see if they have records going back that long."

"I'll do that, Mark."

"Good."

"So tell me about Julia."

"Tell you what?"

"Did you enjoy slapping her around like that? She had a bad leg, was a lot shorter than you. Get off on it? Make you hot?"

"And what if it did?" Simmons sneered at him.

Booth hit him again.

"Hey! This is police brutality!"

"Did you see that, Bones?" Booth asked, looking at her.

"See what?" she asked.

"There's no one else watching, Mark," Booth said, looking at him. "This isn't brutality without a witness."

" 'Bones' ?" he repeated, his lips still twisted into that ugly sneer, his unshaven chin and cheeks giving him a sallow face, as he looked at Brennan. "He call you that 'cause you make him hot?"

Brennan slapped him, and the sting of his face on her hand was satisfying in a way she couldn't even begin to describe.

"What the hell?" Simmons muttered, holding his cheek with his own hand.

"Bones," Booth groaned. "You don't slap with an open hand like that. It leaves a mark."

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry." She wasn't. "I'll aim for another spot next time."

"Good," he smiled at her.

She smiled back.

"Look," Simmons said, rising. "Am I under arrest, or am I free to go?"

"Oh, you're free to go as long as, you know, you expect to have some company."

"What?"

Booth pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. "Got a search warrant here to search your home and property. Looks like your coincidence looked like a hellova lot more to a judge."

They glared at each other.

"Fine," Simmons said finally. "Then I'll lead you to my house." With a final look at Brennan, he opened the door and walked out.

"Is it safe to just let him leave like that, Booth?" Brennan asked.

"Eh. Pete's out there waiting for him, so it's all good." He looked at her, leaning on the table with one of his hands. "Nice shot by the way, Bones."

"Thanks," she smiled at him. "But next time I should aim for somewhere else?"

"Yeah. Go for the back of the head," he got up as she rose from the table. "Or the crotch."

"Really?" her eyebrows rose.

"Well, only if you know he's gonna be here for a while. But don't be too hard, otherwise there'll be evidence."

"I sense that you've had experience with violence and suspects?" she asked as he followed her to the door.

"Yeah," he said, exhaling.

She put her hand on the knob.

"But, Bones?"

"Yeah?" she turned.

"Um..." he paused. "Would you mind just staying here while we toss the house?"

"Why?"

He shifted. "I don't like the way he was looking at you."

"I can take care of myself."

"I know, but...Please?"

She shifted.

"Just call it a favor."

"Well, what would you repay me with?"

He sighed, "I don't know, Bones."

"Well, it's a favor, right?" She paused. "I know."

"What?"

"When we get back to DC, I get to drive for a whole week."

"No. There's no way, Bones."

"Okay. How about five days?"

"Bones."

"I'm not going any lower than that."

He said nothing.

"Fine," she turned the knob. "Then I guess I'm going with—"

"No." He shut the door. "Fine. Four days."

She shook her head. "Five."

"Four and a half. Final offer."

She held out a hand. "Deal."

He shook it.

She smiled.

He sighed again, "You know, you can really be manipulative sometimes, Bones."

"Eh," she shrugged, turning in the direction of the morgue. "So can you."

"Touché."

They said their goodbyes and parted.

--

"So, how'd it go?" Liz asked as Brennan stepped into the locker room, which the two anthropologists had managed to turn into a sort of lounge by adding cushions to the benches and moving some of the seats down from upstairs.

"Eh," she grunted, plopping onto one of the modified benches. "It's still difficult for me to listen to those people talk without getting angry."

Liz handed her a cup of coffee. "What, you mean you expect there'll be a time where you won't get angry?"

She shrugged. "Booth seems to be able to hear these things without losing control. Even when he brutalizes suspects he does it because he knows it'll be the most effective way to get a confession. I do it because I lack control."

"Sweetie, for the last time, you've got to stop aiming for the skies and just focus on what you know you can do."

Her head whipped up at the electronic voice. "Angela?" she said.

"Over here, sweetie."

Liz shifted aside the reveal Brennan's laptop and the artist's face.

Brennan looked at the anthropologist with a raised brow, who shrugged.

"I was down here cleaning up and your computer beeped and suddenly she was there. We got to talking."

Brennan exhaled and looked at Angela. "I don't know how one 'aims for the sky,' but I assume you mean that I'm setting my goals in areas possibly out of my reach."

"You know, whoever doubts your level of genius-ness obviously outta be shot."

Her brows crinkled. " 'Geniues-ness' isn't a word. And I'm not aiming out of my reach. If Booth can do it, that means it can be done. And if it can be done, then it is not implausible that I could learn how to do it as well."

"Yeah, yeah. Relax." Angela held a hand to the screen. "And tell me what's going on."

"We have no evidence," Liz started.

"And a suspect that Booth is checking up on," Brennan finished. "Though even if he's not the murderer, I'd still like a reason to put him in jail."

"Why?"

"He's an asshole?" Liz guessed.

She nodded, "He's..." she groped for a more innocuous term. "Creepy."

"Honey," Angela said. "You've really got to work on your special nouns and adjectives."

She rolled her eyes. "Even if he's not a murderer, he's still a bad person. He beat his girlfriend after she discovered him cheating. And..." she paused. "He made me uneasy."

"Afraid? You?"

"I said 'uneasy.' "

"It amounts to the same thing, honey."

"Fine. I may have been a little afraid, but then I got angry. I..." she got up. "I don't see why it's so difficult to control my anger toward suspects. Booth does."

"First off, you've got to stop comparing yourself to Booth here. That'll never get anywhere. And secondly, it's okay to get angry."

"But not if it effects my objectivity. I shouldn't _want_ this man in jail. It could cause me to overlook things or...make mistakes."

"You're not going to make any mistakes. If there's one person I know who won't allow an error to affect her data, it's you."

She exhaled.

"What's a matter with you anyway, Bren? You usually don't get this worked up about suspects."

Brennan glanced at Liz and shrugged. "I think I've just been spending a little too much time in memory lately."

"What?"

"Well...I remember..." she sat. "It's because seeing you, Liz, reminded me of my grad and undergrad years, and all of the anthropology that's seemed to have migrated to some far portion of my memory since I became a forensic anthropologist."

"And that makes you upset?" Angela asked.

"Well, not the forgetting, but the memories specifically."

They waited.

"As I said, I went into anthropology through the biological sciences. Freudian psychology was raging through academia, and I found that even there, in sciences restricted almost entirely to the physical, there were shades of psychology. Anthropology, I had thought at the time, would maybe help give me perspective."

"On what?" Liz asked.

"Female status." She moved to explain. "I did, unfortunately, run into a lot of the Freudian Oedipus Complex, which I rather vehemently disagree with, but anthropology did not offer me the shelter I had, at the time, been seeking. It offered a separate explanation than the Oedipus Complex, but the underlying issue was still the fact that the female sex has been subordinate virtually uniformly throughout history.

"I had a love-hate relationship with the subject. It fascinated me. After all, anatomically, one of the only things women lack is a penis and men, conversely, a vagina, and I have taken down men over twice my size. I could understood intellectually why men took dominant status—since wars cannot be fought by child-rearing or pregnant females—but emotionally I found it disturbing. And some of the professors who championed Freud's theory treated the females in the class differently, including myself. It made me angry."

"Angry?" Angela repeated.

"Yes. Really angry." Her hands balled into fists. "Why should anyone's sex determine who they are?" She was up again and pacing. "It was fascinating. I couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to know more. But every time I went in to get more bits and pieces of the past and the present, the more I came to realize that this low status of ours seemed destined to never change. And even now, with so much movements towards equality, it would seem that the male role continues to press.

"And," she stopped. "Seeing Simmons today reminded me of how passionate I used to be."

"More passionate then now?" Liz asked softly, her voice teasing.

"Yes. Passionate. Truly passionate. When you're filled with so much emotion that your thoughts almost seem to force their way from your mouth. I miss feeling that." She inhaled. "With our job, one must contain her emotions; keep them in check. Professionalism is the key. And that's important, of course. There wouldn't be such a discipline as forensics without it. But in cultural anthropology, nothing is beyond questioning openly. With enough of us together, the entire room could become a yelling match between two opposing groups of people. I miss being able to debate something to the point of screaming, with someone else who felt just as strongly as I did, but believed in something entirely different. There is no truth to fall back on, there are hardly any rules to conform to. There were only true battles of wills and the tongue.

"And the issue of sex was one that I had passion for. There were a lot of people to argue with, and I was always instigated into arguments. I loved it, every word ploy and every verbal parry. That sort of passion dies hard, Ange. It's probably the purest form of life there is, or at least that I've ever experienced."

She sat down hard, feeling the elation that the release of anger always gave her, and then the typical emotional tax that it always had. She felt like she was at a cross between wanting to strangle someone and wanting to sleep.

It had been much too long since she'd felt this way.

There was quiet.

It would seem that her outburst was obviously just that: an outburst. The release she'd sought had ironically been released by describing it. Apparently her two friends realized this, for they didn't press any further, and instead abruptly switched subjects when enough time had passed for Brennan to cool down.

They talked about the weather, admittedly one of the most stereotypical conversational topics ever to be invented. After that, food was discussed, which somehow segued back to the case, which Angela and Liz were updated on, minus the anthropology.

Eventually the rest of her colleagues at the Jeffersonian showed up, pulled a chair by Angela's desk, and got to talking. They talked for hours about what ever it was they wanted to talk about, Liz getting absorbed in a debate with Hodgins while Brennan and Zack discussed one of their recent budget cuts and its effect on Limbo and how the skeletons were being handled—a subject which eventually pulled in the rest of the team. Once Cam made her appearance, they had gotten onto the subject of the economy and local DC politics, and were hopelessly entangled in a mess of contrasting opinions and differing experience.

By the time Booth walked back in with his news, he found two open laptops with live feed to the Jeffersonian, and six scientists absorbed in a debate respectful enough to put half the politicians in the country to shame.

His presence did not halt it until he made himself known, quite loudly, over them and their opinions.

"Hey, Squint Squad!"

They broke off abruptly, all turning, either electronically or not, to see him standing in the doorway.

"Jeez, dude, you didn't have to shout," Hodgins said reproachfully.

"Didn't we all agree that you were saying 'dude' way too much?" Zack asked.

The entomologist cuffed him while everyone else, with the exception of Liz, nodded their heads.

"Well, what if I wanted to say 'dude,' dude?"

"Then you can have doughnut duty for the rest of the week, Dr. Hodgins," Cam said.

"Or," Angela said, "You could clean my house."

"Acceptable alternative, Angela," the pathologist approved.

"Or..." Brennan started.

"I could shoot him," Booth cut in before she could make her suggestion for Hodgins' possible use. "Can't you guys stay focused for ten seconds?"

"Yeah, Zack." Hodgins said. "Don't distract us."

"I was merely pointing out that we had agreed—"

A glare from Booth shut them up.

"Actually, I can stay focused for several hours at a time," Brennan said, ignoring all three men. "As long as I'm not interrupted, of course."

"Yes," Cam said. "Which obviously means you're not holding our attention, Seeley." She grinned at him.

"You know what, Camille?" His voice trailed off. "You know what? Nevermind." He threw up his hands.

"Why are you here anyway, Booth?" Angela asked. "Bren said you were tossing a suspect's house."

"Right. I was. Cops are still there, actually."

"Do you have anything to share?" Liz asked.

Booth stared at her with a look somewhere between agitated and exasperated.

"What?" Brennan said. "What's with the look?"

It was her turn to receive it.

"I think Booth wants us to stop talking," Angela said.

"How do you know?" Zack. "Maybe he has to go to the restroom."

The look Booth then gave him was more murderous than agitated.

"Okay, people, settle down," Cam said, holding up her hands. "Let the man speak before he herniates."

Brennan opened her mouth to correct her, but Liz tapped her shoulder and shook her head. She shut her mouth.

Silence descended upon the room. Booth waited a few seconds as if just to make sure they were done before speaking.

"We didn't find anything."

"God," Angela exhaled. "All this build-up for nothing."

"Well," Booth said quickly, either to defend himself or dam up the opening for conversation. "It wasn't a complete waste. I got the guy's place-of-work, his hours, his salary. A profile. And just because there was nothing at the house doesn't mean he didn't do it."

"Then what does it mean?" Brennan asked.

"It means I need to keep looking."

"But we already knew that."

"Yeah, but this time we know where to start."

"Fair point," Liz said.

"So where do we start?" Brennan asked.

"I. Me." He pointed to his chest.

"What?"

"You have been working since we got here. I've been cooling my heels. This time, I'd like a role-reversal."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "I don't think you'd like to be in the lab. Not to mention, neither of us are qualified to—"

"No. Bones, you do nothing while I work."

"Why?"

"Because..." he glanced around the room. "Nevermind."

"Good. Because this time I would've asked for your entire car, not just less than a week's worth of driving time."

His mouth dropped open.

"You know, I think I like this thing you call hard-ball, Angela," she continued, glancing at the artist. "It's fun."

"Fun?" Booth repeated.

Hodgins snickered.

The agent glared at him.

He shut up.

Angela snorted.

"Somebody just shoot me now," Booth muttered.

"None of us are armed," Brennan pointed out.

He exhaled.

"What's a matter, Seeley?" Cam asked. "Can't handle us scientists?"

"You know, you are enjoying this way too much, Camille."

"I'm the ringmaster of this circus, aren't I?"

He muttered something under his breath.

"This isn't a circus." Zack.

"You know, somebody should record this thing." Hodgins. "No one would ever believe this conversation ever took place if I described it to them."

"I wasn't talking about nothing." Zack.

"I am recording this." Angela.

"Ooh." Liz. "Can I get a tape?"

"Sure."

"Why would you want this on tape?" Zack.

"Didn't I just explain this?" Hodgins.

"I—"

The audio suddenly cut out, and Brennan looked over to see that Booth had muted the laptops.

"That was an effective way to end the conversation," Liz said..

_'No fair'_ read a scribbled note that had been pressed to the monitor back in DC.

"Look," Booth said. "How about I go and talk to Simmons' employer, get what he's got, and then come back later? And no," he looked at Brennan. "There's no reason for you to come, Bones. You'd just be bored."

"You think?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'm just asking for records and paperwork. No anthropology. No squints. No egg-heads."

"My team are _not_ egg-heads."

He exhaled.

"But, fine. I will stay here while you go."

"Thank you," he sounded extremely sincere. "I'll see you later, Bones."

"Okay," she said. "I'll see you later."

"Bye, Booth!" exclaimed a chorus of voices from the laptop.

"Couldn't you have waited an extra five seconds?" the agent asked, looking at Liz with betrayal in his eyes.

"Nope," she shrugged. "Bye, Booth."

With a final sarcastic wave, he was gone.

Shortly thereafter, the scientists went back to their conversation.

--

The team visited with each other until well after lunch, and several hours beyond that, both Liz and Brennan taking periodic absences to restock their food supply. It was nice to slip back into the Jeffersonian atmosphere, a land close to and yet so far removed from rotting dead women and psychotics with knives. The scientists' ability to be simultaneously joking and serious, literal and metaphorical, and their passive take on assertiveness was something that Brennan always missed whenever she was gone from her colleagues for too long, and she was comforted to hear their teasing after over a week of little contact. They really were like a second family.

When they said their goodbyes it was with cheerful waves and promises of tales of the Sierras—something which Brennan would likely to have to make up. But Liz promised to help with the task by creating some sort of photo montage. Or maybe it was food. She wasn't entirely sure.

"What time is it?" she asked aloud, glancing at her wrist.

"Around six," Liz said. "Your people sure can talk."

"Well, it's not often that they get to talk to someone besides Booth and I on these laptops. At least, not people who truly want to talk to them."

"Booth wants to talk to them?" she asked, folding up her laptop and sliding it into a bag.

She shrugged. "I know he says he doesn't, but that doesn't explain why he chooses to spend so much time at the lab even when I'm not available and he has no reason to be there. And even though Booth denies it, I have glanced him talking to Hodgins and Zack a few times without being forced."

"Ah."

Brennan packed up her own laptop and stared at it. "There's not really any reason for me to take this back to the hotel. Is there a free locker I can store this?"

"Yeah." She jabbed a thumb behind her. "The one on the far left. If you want a lock, there's an extra inside."

"Thanks."

"No prob."

Brennan slid the case inside the metal case, looped in the padlock, locked it, and glanced around herself. "Now all I have to carry is my purse and coat."

"Don't you love it when that happens?"

"Yes. Although I find that these things only ever occur when I'm on vacation or not working."

"Well, think of it this way," she patted her shoulder. "You're still leaving a morgue without paperwork, a briefcase, or the knowledge that a dead body will be waiting for you when you get back tomorrow. That is called a successful day at the office."

"I think Hodgins once told me something similar."

"I knew there was a reason I liked him," she said, slinging her own purse higher over her shoulder as the two women began to leave.

"I seem to remember a lot of arguing coming from your side of the room."

"It was a friendly debate."

"About?"

"UFOs." She jabbed the 'up' button on the elevator. "I didn't need to hear about little green men eating people's brains. Or 'gray' men, as he insisted."

"Ah," she said and snorted as the doors dinged open.

"But after that we got to more even ground."

"Politics?"

They stepped inside.

"Religion."

The doors shut.

"I would think that would be even rockier."

"Not if we both agreed."

"Oh."

"Yep. And after that I was talking to Cam though, so..."

"What?"

"We have had similar administrative experiences, so we could both voice our mutual hatred over a dead and decaying system."

"That analogy seems ironic."

"Good. That's what I was trying for."

With a groan, the elevator doors opened once more, and they stepped out.

"Where are you going?" Brennan asked, noting that she wasn't turning with her for the exit.

"Pete's office. He offered me a double-date with his wife, and I have to tell him I don't have a date."

"Well, good luck with that. See you tomorrow?"

"Yep."

They exchanged goodbyes and parted.

Brennan's phone buzzed in her pocket as she headed for the car, and she flipped it open to receive a missed call. Booth. He had left the car with her—as she could plainly see—and had hitched a ride to a local restaurant. Would he meet her there? There would be some pie in it for her.

Well, she didn't want pie. But she'd go nonetheless.

Rain began to fall as she yanked open the driver's door and climbed inside, and the engine turned over with a sputtering sound, its soft green lights flickering softly to life.

"Ugh," she muttered. "Why do these things always seem to happen when Booth isn't here?"

She glared at the flashing yellow button, wondering what it meant. A look through the dash didn't reveal anything, as, apparently, the information on the vehicle had been taken out. She knew about cars, but only in the most basic and most complex sense. She knew the chemistry. She knew some of the internal wiring. What she didn't know was how everything worked together as a functioning whole.

She also knew that the things that made the car move—its internal combustion—essentially made the thing into a rolling, padded bomb, and to ignore mechanical issues would be more dangerous then the annoyance of dealing with the problem.

So, she pulled out a phone book, looked for recognizable street names, found one, and decided to go to a mechanic's shop. Maybe whoever worked there could assure her that it was merely an issue of paying for an oil change or whatever it was that cars needed.

She pulled out of the lot and onto 49.

Her destination was merely a few minutes away, and even at a time that would be considered rush hour back home, traffic was light and the only roads she had to travel down were fairly major ones. There was something to be said for small counties.

As she approached the red light coming off the exit from 49, she got a confirmation for her decision to go the mechanics'. Despite her application of the breaks, the car sped straight through the light and the thankfully empty crossroads. The car quickly came back to her control, but the hiccup was enough to make her nervous. When she reached the shop, she parked quickly and trotted to the station, where a man had stepped from the building.

"Hi," she greeted and quickly explained her problem, wondering if she should call Booth to let him know she'd be late. As the mechanic shuffled to her car, she pressed speed-dial and waited as the phone rang. Getting no answer, she attempted to leave a message but the phone clicked off before she could do so. Several more tries yielded the same result.

"Ugh," she muttered, finally realizing what the problem was. Booth never checked his cell messages unless he knew he had missed a call. The inbox was probably full again.

She called Liz instead and was sent straight to voice mail, for the phone was off. She left a brief message explaining where she was and that she may need a ride to pick up Booth so that she could be his ride back to the hotel. It sounded like a stupid thing to say after she hang up, but she decided not to linger on that thought too long.

"Ma'am," the mechanic said, walking over to her. They were both shielded from the rain merely by a structure that was used to house cleaning materials for persons wishing to wash their own car. "I'm afraid there's something stuck in one of the pipes. It may be a few minutes."

"Stuck?" she repeated. "Like what?"

He shrugged. "Not enough light for me to tell. Why don't you wait inside where it's warmer? May be a few minutes. It looks like the rain's not about let up."

She poked her head out from under her shelter and felt fat raindrops fall into her hair and drip down her face. Yes. It was raining alright.

Sighing, she walked to building, listening to gravel crunch under her feet and the rain tap the walls and windows. It was always nice to listen to, but never particularly nice to be in the middle of. She noticed that hers weren't the only footsteps on the gravel and glanced back.

"Need a flashlight," the mechanic explained.

She nodded, pulling her coat tighter about herself.

As she stepped into the shop, her eyes met those of a familiar face, and his smile froze her blood.

"Ah, what good fortune to see you again, Dr. Brennan."

Something sharp rammed into her neck, and then all was black.

--

Review and I'll post sooner!


	6. Trump Card

May want to read this first part with the song "Angel" by Massive Attack in the background. I always like my angst with a bit of ambiance music. If not, should read fine on its own.

--

_Chapter Six_

--

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Over and over, a slow and monotonous beat, keeping pace with her heart and her pounding head.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She inhaled and felt her chest expand and her body sink further into whatever it was that she was laying on. It stank of vomit. Her own vomit. Her arms had not listened to her commands to move, and so she was still lying there, inhaling a mix of vomit, sweat, and blood. Though it wasn't her blood. Not yet, at least.

Her fingers curled as the muscles in her arms tightened. She rolled over, from her right to her left side, and propped herself on her elbow, forcing her eyes to open. She breathed through her open mouth, rocking slightly as air was pulled in and pushed out of her.

There was light, but its source was impossible to trace. It was almost an electric blue, like a UV light that only barely penetrated the area in which one was working, allowing shadows to form but not much else.

She shifted again, forcing her weight onto her left hand as she rose to a sitting position. Her head pounded, and her vision went static-y as her blood pressure dropped, and she felt the taste of bile in her throat again. Her stomach heaved but only acid flowed into her open mouth. There was nothing left to come.

She spat and fell back, something hard catching her and keeping her upright. She felt it with a shaking hand. It was a wall. She knocked her head into it and closed her eyes, willing her strength to return.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She listened to it, attempting to ignore the smell of rot and waste that permeated this place. She could not remember how she had gotten here. When she searched her memories, the only thing that came to mind was video feed and the Jeffersonian. But even without a clear memory, it was obvious what had happened to her.

A sharp sting hit her neck as if in confirmation, and she pressed her hand to the spot. It was puffy and round. Puncture. The pressure of her hand felt good, and she kept it there.

Her body slowly re-established its connection to her arms and legs, and the pounding in her head began to lessen. Whatever she had been drugged with was finally wearing off, and she felt strong enough to get up.

The process took longer than she had originally anticipated, as her knees buckled the instant she gave them weight to support. She was left hanging onto the wall, breathing hard, her legs shaking. Her blood pressure had dropped again, and her vision was fading in and out, from fuzzy to sharply defined shadows. All of this told her that either the sedative she had been injected with had been extremely potent or had been applied at levels too high for her body to handle. She was probably at only half her normal strength, and a fight in her condition would make her a clear loser.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She wondered what time it was and brushed her wrist with her hand, but there was no watch to be found there. Unnerved, she looked around herself. There was no way to tell the time. This prison lacked a window.

She got off the wall, willing her legs to hold her. They did, albeit shakily, and she stood there, her heel pressed into what she now knew was a mattress. Its presence sped her heart beat, and her fingers curled at her sides. She was simply to wait here for whatever fate had been planned for her. Her mind flashed a picture of Julia Beldon, and she recoiled bodily, spurred away from the bed as if shocked.

A stab of fear sliced through her gut as something uncurled from the shadows. It rose and separated itself, and what it had previously been connected to melted back into the darkness. She recognized the thing as a human being, and her heart rose to her throat.

"Who are you?" she asked, forcing the words from her lips. They sounded small, her voice raspy.

It stopped its slow advance forward, and she asked her question again, willing her voice to be stronger.

"You'll know soon enough," it replied. He replied. His form moved closer, and she shifted backwards, her heel squishing into the mattress. He melted closer. She took another step back and fell, her heart pounding so loudly she could hear nothing else.

The form flashed forward, no longer a shadow but a being, and she felt his weight on her stomach as he straddled her, his hand capturing hers and pinning them to her chest.

"Won't lie," he said and she flinched as his fingers brushed her shirt aside. Her breathing was loud and rapid, matching his own. "This is gonna hurt."

She struggled, but his weight only increased until she could no longer feel air in her lungs. Something sharp began to trace her throat and she froze as it traveled in lazy circles, eventually moving upward to tease her lips, her nose, her forehead.

"You done?" he asked as she gasped, lungs screaming.

She nodded, and the pressure lifted, allowing oxygen to grace her lungs again. She sucked the air in hungrily but remained still.

"Good."

The blade traveled back down and traced her throat again. Her heartbeat throbbed against the cruel steel. She looked away as it was suddenly removed, wanting and yet unwilling to shut her eyes.

"Get on with it, man," a second voice replied, and she flinched as if struck. She recognized his voice. "Taking too goddammed long, like always."

Her captor hissed, and she felt his body jerk as he shifted.

"Fine."

Before she even knew what was happening, the knife plunged downward. Pain erupted as her vision went white, then black, before she felt nothing at all.

-†‡†-

"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts," Booth hummed to himself as he strolled down the hallway of his hotel. "Deedily deedily. There they are, all standing in a row." He reached into a pocket and hunted for the card he had stashed there. Once he found it, he held it up to his partner's door.

He respected her need for privacy, not only because he respected her in general, but also because he knew that if he didn't, he would end up either flat on his ass or fit for one of her lab tables. Neither idea appealed to him, so he figured it was best to—at least once in a while—give her her space.

But she had blown him off for his dinner invitation. She never did that unless she didn't receive his call. And if she didn't receive his call then either the phone was off and she had left it in the morgue or she had ignored him. They weren't in the middle of a fight, so that last wasn't likely. And if the first was true, then she had probably forgotten to eat last night, and thus he—and his bagels—were or at least should be welcome. In theory, anyway.

But he would knock first.

"Bones?" he called, knocking with one hand while the other inserted the plastic key. "Bones?" the door opened smoothly and he stepped inside, shutting it softly behind him. "Bones? You up?"

He walked around the tiny hall and into the bedroom area to find an empty and made bed. The bathroom door was open and dark, and he could see the neat line of whatever toiletries she had brought with her from DC, none looking disturbed by a morning routine. His eyebrows creased together. "Bones?" he called again, knowing she wasn't here but deciding to test that one more time. He didn't get a reply.

"Hm," he muttered and slung the plastic bag of bagels over his shoulder. "Maybe she went to the morgue."

He headed out, shutting the door carefully behind him, and walked downstairs. He was just searching the parking lot for the car when it occurred to him that it wasn't here because Brennan had it.

"Hm," he said and glanced at his watch before pulling out his cell. He could kill two birds with one stone. His partner would eat and he would have a ride. And she couldn't complain either, because she got the car all night.

His call to her cell went unanswered, as was his second and third. Giving up, he called Liz, who also didn't pick up.

"Jeez," he muttered, punching in Pete's number. "Doesn't anyone answer their phones?"

"Hello?" the sheriff answered by the second ring.

"Hey. It's Booth."

"Hey. How was dinner last night?"

"Good. Good. Hey, listen, can you go downstairs and tell Bones to answer her phone, or to turn it on, or to come up and talk on yours?"

A pause, then, "Sure."

"Thanks."

"No problemo." He clicked off.

Booth walked over to one of the pathetic trees that had been planted in the parking lot, its trunk held up by two wooden poles. Just a few yards away was a large oak, and it made the little tree seem all the more absurd. He sat beside it, twirling a pair of dice between his fingers. Many minutes passed. He tapped his foot and watched a small flock of birds go nuts over something that had been dropped on the floor at some point or another. He wondered if it was some sort of seed and then got a craving for trail mix. Maybe he'd make Bones stop somewhere and pick him up something on her way over as compensation for leaving him hanging last night.

Finally, the phone rang, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Bones?" he asked.

"No," was his reply. The voice was female though. "It's Liz. Dr. Brennan isn't here."

"Did she leave or something?"

"I don't know."

"Wasn't she there earlier?"

"You mean last night? Yeah. She left a little before I did."

"Before?" he repeated. "Bones always leaves last."

"Well, we both left the morgue at the same time, but she went out to the car while I went to talk to Pete about something."

A small twinge of apprehension nipped his gut. "But she was there earlier today, right?"

"Don't see any reason why she would be. The only thing that needs to be done here is the prepping of Julia Beldon's bones for burial. Nope. I haven't see her since last night." She paused. "Wait. Why?"

"She's not at the hotel either. It doesn't even look like she slept here."

There was a pause, "Her car's not its parking spot."

"So she did leave last night." He was on his feet now, pacing. "But where is she now?"

No answer from Liz.

"Is her cell phone there?"

Another pause, and then a muffled voice over the receiver. "I'll go check," she said into the phone, and then the line was quiet.

He waited, pacing around, and wondering what the hell was going on.

"No. It's not here," a breathless voice replied minutes later.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. And neither is her purse. She did leave here."

"Oh, great. So where did she go?"

More muffled voices, then, "Booth, I'm coming to pick you up." Pete.

"Okay."

They exchanged goodbyes and hung up, and Booth spent the next few minutes pacing in agitated circles. By the time Pete appeared, he was twirling his dice at top speed, and the drive to the sheriff's office was spent in tense silence.

Once they were there, they headed upstairs to a room he had never seen before: the security room. Inside were a few televisions and camera controls, as well as Liz, who was manipulating the knob for one of them.

"Okay," she said without greeting. "You can see her here, on the security tapes." She pointed to the screen, which featured a grainy black-and-white image of the parking lot, as well as a small figure moving toward an equally small car. It paused for a second outside the car before yanking open the door and getting inside, and several minutes passed before it pulled out and onto 49, where it disappeared.

"What was she doing in the car?" he asked. "Isn't there a way to enhance the quality on this thing?"

They both shrugged. Liz said, "It's raining, so the camera's pretty obscured anyway. And this isn't the highest quality camera."

"Do we know where she went?"

"Only that she went east on 49." She inhaled. "Should we really be this worked up? Are you sure she didn't just get an unexpected call or...something?" Apparently, it sounded lame to her as well, and her voice trailed off.

He shook his head, "Bones doesn't pull Houdini acts."

She sighed. "And she didn't call you or anything?"

He pulled out his cell and called his answering machine, which was apparently full. He listened to the messages for her voice, but only found one that was a few weeks old in which she reminded him that orange juice happened to both stain her carpets and give her heartburn, and that if he insisted on bringing her breakfast, then it might as well not make her feel uncomfortable for the rest of the day.

He smiled slightly at the reminder, and Liz looked at him hopefully. "She did call?"

"Old message," he said quickly, and continued skimming through. By the end, he had found no other calls from his partner, and he shook his head.

"Maybe she called me," she said and pulled out her phone, flipping it on. "She did."

He stared at her phone as she put it on speaker.

"Hey, it's Brennan. Car's acting up and I had to take it to the mechanic's to see what the trouble is. But Booth asked me to be his ride tonight, and since I need a ride now, I figure you can be the ride so I can be the ride for Booth—if that makes any sense at all. Anyway, if you get this message within the confines of six and seven o'clock, call me, and I'll tell you whether or not I really do need the ride. Thanks."

The message ended.

"Why didn't you pick up?" he asked.

"Phone was off. I left it in the morgue." She sighed.

"What now?" Pete asked.

"Well, either Brennan really did pull a Houdini, or she's missing." He exhaled himself.

"Which do you think is most likely?"

His silence was answer enough.

"So what do we do?" Liz asked. "Where do we start?"

"We split up, handle things separately," Booth replied, pulling a small packet of paper from the inside of his jacket. He had kept it there so that he and his partner could go over his new information together during breakfast. Now he'd have to do it to find her.

"First off, it can't be coincidence that she goes missing at the same time she's here for this case, so let's assume that whoever took her is involved with the deaths of our three women. So we need to find who killed them. These," he waggled his packet. "are the records of customers at Simmons' place of work. I need you to look through them." He handed it to her.

"Sierra Auto Body?" she read off the top. "Car repair?"

"Yeah..." his voice trailed off. "Brennan went for auto repair." His molars slammed together. "Sonovabitch." He whirled and his hand was on the knob of the door before he was stopped by Pete.

"Hey. Didn't you call and tell me Simmons was clean?"

"Yeah. But..." he started pacing. "Brennan goes for auto repair. Simmons works in auto repair. He's got connections with two of our victims. I mean, you can follow my reasoning."

"He was working. You called. You checked the records. He couldn't have kidnapped them." He exhaled. "I know you want to find her as quickly as possible, but if it's not him, it's not him."

He said nothing.

"I'll call the local taxi service and see if Dr. Brennan called for a ride," Pete continued. "If not, I can track down the local bus drivers and see if they remember her. We'll take this one step at a time."

"What do I do?" he asked, feeling as if he was being left out of the loop.

"Get ahold of her colleagues. Tell them what's going on. I'm sure we'll have something by the time you're done."

"Okay. Right," he nodded, and felt a twinge of guilt for not even remembering the squints. He began to walk out.

"Booth," Liz said, glancing up from the papers she had already begun to spread out on the desk. "Brennan left her laptop here. I think they'd rather talk to you face-to-face."

"Right. Right," he nodded and walked out, feeling disoriented. A day ago he was being teased by squints and his partner. A day ago they had eaten bagels, and interrogated a suspect. Now she wasn't here, and it almost felt as if he would bump straight into her when he walked to the elevator, and she would tell him to watch where he's going, and no she wasn't hungry, and didn't he have any work to do?

But when he walked down the lights of the morgue were bright, the space empty. He glanced inside the autopsy room on his way to the locker room, but Brennan was not pouring over bones or staring at something odd-looking under a microscopes. Half of a skeleton sat on one of the tables, and a skull watched him solemnly from its perch atop a closed box. He nodded slightly to it before moving on, not knowing entirely why he did it but feeling it was right all the same.

In the locker room, he walked to the only padlocked locker, sure that it was his partner's. She loved her laptop almost as much as she loved her bones, and except for her apartment, she always kept it locked up somewhere. Maybe she was paranoid about whether or not he or somebody else would break in and read her things, or maybe it was protocol. Either way, it was a quirk he liked to tease her about.

He twisted the padlock's numbers to the combination "12193848," the Jeffersonian's number for one of its Jane Does. He had figured out the combination after he had found her in Limbo with the skeleton, and when he had requested a lunch, she had, in a distant voice, told him her perception of the story of the woman's life, and why she found it so impactual. Afterwards she had only vaguely remembered telling him about it, and he had noticed that when she went to lock up something in her office, it was the same set of numbers that had been on the Limbo box.

The padlock clicked free, and he popped it off and swung open the locker door, revealing a small leather case. He pulled out the laptop and set it on a table, powering it on, then typing in her password. The screen bloomed into _Christina's World_, a painting that, for all intents and purposes, he could not figure out why she had chosen as her background. He searched for the icon for video conference in her tab bar, found it, and double-clicked. A few pop-ups appeared, he clicked through them, and was then rewarded with a beep and Angela's face.

"Hey, sweetie," a cheery voice greeted him. "I—" her voice broke off. "You're not sweetie."

"No."

"Does she know you're using her laptop, Booth? 'Cause you know how annoyed she gets when you commandeer it." She smiled at him, but it melted away when he didn't react. "What's wrong?"

"Bones. She's..." his voice trailed off as the artist flinched and all traces of amusement melted from her face.

She held up a finger. "I'm going to get everyone." Without another word, she whirled and left.

He sat back, watching the office through the screen, his heart beating a jerky rhythm. It was always hard to deliver bad news about one squint to another, even something as innocuous as someone out with a cold. Plans had to be made for visits and for food delivery, and whether or not flowers or balloons with jokes scrawled across them should be delivered. He remembered one of his own sick-day experiences in which he had opened his door to find Zack and Hodgins bearing small Tupperware boxes of soup and cookies, as well as a doodle from Angela. It continued the illusion of a second family, as dysfunctional and offbeat as it was. But news like that that he had to deliver was always the hardest of all.

Cam appeared on screen, glancing around herself as if she wasn't quite sure why she was there, before her eyes lit on him. "Seeley," she said. "What's going on? You warming up to us or something?"

He didn't say anything, watching as Zack and Hodgins, flanking Angela, walked in.

"Okay. Tell me, Booth," the artist said, sitting hard. "And tell me quick."

"What's a matter?" Cam said, her light expression darkening as she looked between them.

Booth explained quickly, ignoring the sharp inhalation when he pointed out the connection between the murders and his partner's disappearance. Once he was finished there was silence as everyone stared at him, as if hoping he had a solution or that he had played some sick sort of joke.

Finally, Cam spoke, "Well, I think it's pretty clear what we have to do."

Everyone looked at her while she looked at Booth.

"We'll be down by the next plane trip to California."

He exhaled, and felt a weight lift from his gut. Although he found the squints annoying on normal days, it would be comforting in some odd way to have them here. Maybe it just felt as if as long as they were together, no one, no matter how intelligent, could get away with illegal activities.

Across the screen, the squints all nodded an affirmation, gave a short goodbye laced with promises of being there soon, and clicked off. As Booth powered down the laptop, he heard the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the room, and he turned to see Liz rush to the doorway.

"I found something," she said breathlessly, holding up the papers from the auto shop. "Something big."

She was at his side in seconds and began to rapidly spread papers out on the empty counter. His eyes widened as he saw the highlighted names and dates.

"Carrie Patel, Carol Sorrentino, Julia Beldon," he read from the record sheets. "All days before they went missing."

"And that's not all," Liz said, sliding another paper in front of him. "Simmons' connection may have been coincidence, may not have been, but look, here," she pointed to the name in the slot for 'mechanic.' "This same guy worked on all three cars."

"Drew Perry," he read. "Simmons is a grunt guy. Is he on the records at all?"

"No. Not as far as car repair is concerned. He just helps out. But," she jabbed another slot on the record sheets. "All three of these women have the same make of car. Blue BMWs."

"They all have the same car troubles?"

She shook her head, "No. But three dead women, all having a repair done by the same man on the same kind of car? That would be one hellava coincidence."

"Yeah," he muttered.

"And," she pulled a hidden manila envelope from underneath the stack of papers. "Pete ran him. Turns out, bastard's got a record."

"Let me see," Booth said, and reached for it.

She handed to him and talked over him as he read, "One dropped count of assault, and another for attempted rape."

"Any jail time?" he asked, more thinking to himself than anything.

"No. Notes say the victims abruptly dropped the charges. Pete's making a call to the officers who handled the cases."

"Thanks." He looked at her.

"Least I could do."

"No. Really, thanks."

She nodded. "Anything else I can do?"

He shook his head, but then reconsidered. "Look, I know if you're anything like my partner, this will be hard, but I've got to ask you."

"What?"

"Do you think it would be possibly to just hang here? You're staying in a hotel, you're not well-protected. I mean, Bones knows about three different martial arts, and she's..." he refused to put a label on what she was. "So, could you, you know, just stay here? Please?"

She exhaled. "I do not like the thought of being some damsel in distress, Booth, but I know you're right. However," she poked a finger to his chest. "Anything happens, I am not to be shielded. Got it?"

"Yeah," he nodded, relieved that she conceded so easily. "I won't."

"Good," she glanced around. "But I'll definitely be sleeping upstairs."

He smiled slightly at the joke as the sound of more footsteps announced the arrival of Pete, who stepped rapidly into the room.

"You know about Perry?" he asked.

Booth nodded.

"Officers say that the charges brought against him were quite real. But he had somehow managed to intimidate the victims and, bang," he slapped the door. "Charges dropped."

"We gotta find this guy," Booth said the obvious. "Do we have his address?"

"Yeah," Pete nodded. "I came down here so we can go pick him up."

"You'll stay here?" the agent glanced back at his remaining forensic anthropologist, who was looking somewhere between annoyed, exhausted, and worried.

"Fine," she said, plopping heavily into a nearby seat. "Fine. I'll wait here like a good little princess."

"You know it's only because I'm worried about your connection to the case."

"Then why aren't you two staying in?"

"First off, because this guy comes after women, and, secondly, attacking one of us would be virtually an automatic death penalty."

"And thirdly," Pete said. "We have guns." He shifted aside his jacket as if to prove it.

"Yeah, there's that too," Booth agreed. "Besides, you know, civilians are not really supposed to be at murder suspects' homes."

"Then why does Brennan do it?"

"That's a story for another day," he replied, a touch of amusement lighting his voice at the memory of the combustion that resulted in his partnership with Brennan. "Now, Pete, let's get going. I want to nail this guy's carcass to the wall." His fingers clenched together as he began to think about whatever was happening to Brennan right now because he had failed to protect her from the bastard. "Now."

The sheriff nodded. "I've got his address. Let's drive."

"Don't you need a warrant?" Liz called as the two left the room.

They ignored her, and the men took the stairs to go up, clattering loudly but all the while saying nothing to each other. Once they reached the car, they hopped in and sped off—Booth reading off the directions while Pete drove.

Rain slapped the windshield as they went, trees and small outcroppings of buildings flashing by. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and the streets were quiet. Even the farmlands outside some of the roads were devoid of their inhabitants, the cows and horses no doubt taking shelter under a tree or in some sort of building.

Perry's house was located on a road off Colfax which became dirt about halfway through it. The road was bordered on the right with a barbed wire fence, and the left almost a solid block of various bushes and trees, impregnable by both the car and anyone on foot. The drive took fifteen minutes from entering the side road to Perry's house, and required a few turns as the road branched off into other properties. As they went the forest became thicker over the car, and the rain was stopped before it could splatter onto the windshield.

"I'm gonna go ahead and take a guess that this isn't prime real estate?" Booth asked as Pete pulled to a stop under a large conifer.

"Nope," the sheriff shook his head, "And if the property was bought back when housing was cheap as hell, it was probably a good deal."

He nodded and opened the door, his heartbeat increasing as he looked at the house in front of them.

It was mostly brick and wood, designed to blend into the forest around it. Windows were sparse but well placed, as they faced the bald spots in the trees. The air was humid and the place dark, giving the illusion that they were in the middle of a tropical forest, and large outcroppings of rock bulged from fallen tree stumps and gaps between bushes.

There couldn't be a worse location to try to find someone or something in.

"No car," Pete noted, glancing around. "Is he even here?"

Booth grunted, his hand sliding inside his jacket and curling over his gun.

"Well, let's give him a friendly knock, see if he answers," he continued, walking to the door, his gait loose but controlled. He wrapped the old wood hard, and called with a commanding voice for an answer.

Minutes passed.

Rain, as thin as mist, began to wet their hair, and Booth felt cold, pulling his jacket closer to his body. This was all wrong. He could be feet from his partner. But because of their lack of warrant, the only thing they could do was request to have free access to the house. He hated how helpless he was to do anything.

His fingers itched.

Please let him give them an excuse to shoot him.

"Maybe he's not here," Pete said finally, lowering his wrist and shaking it. He then checked his watch. "Judge may still be there if we rush. If she's not, I'll call her in privately."

Booth nodded. If Perry wasn't here to give them permission, then they'd get it the legal way. The right way. They were the good guys after all. It was exactly what Brennan would have wanted, even if she would have ignored her own subconscious and done what she felt like anyway.

He recalled something she had once told him as they backed from the house.

"Rules dictate order," Brennan had said, tapping her fingers on his dashboard. "And if we all went around merely breaking whatever rule didn't strike our fancy at the time, this thing we call society would melt in the crucible that is human interaction, and chaos and disorder would reign until new rules, and possibly even rulers, were created merely to survive.

"I believe in protestation, and personal prerogative," she had continued. "But if no one played by the rules, then there would not be a game to be played at all."

Her words were the only thing that stopped him from not hopping out of the car then and there to search for her. He prayed this wasn't a decision he would come to regret.

--

Hours later, they were back where they had started, plus warrant and several other agents. Judge Warner had been easy to convince to sign it, after she had been pulled from a late meeting, and with piece of paper in hand they had driven back to the station and grabbed a few officers.

Because of its size, Grass Valley was mostly held together by volunteer cops with a few full-timers mixed in. The most they usually had to deal with were meth and pot heads, and the results of the druggies' activities. However, when pulled in, the few spare officers were hard-working and went about their job more or less silently and efficiently.

Unfortunately, they found nothing.

Even with full legal access to the grounds, most of the area was so heavily forested that it was deemed unsafe to break up and head into the woods. Not only was there no guarantee that Perry was not hiding somewhere near, this was also an area notorious for bear and cougar activity. There were assurances that an attack would be so close to improbable that it was impossible, but, nonetheless, only small groups went in to search at a time.

By the time Booth was ordered away from the scene, the only thing they had managed to turn up was a small deer family and a nasty infestation of large yellow fungus that covered a great section of trees many many yards in. Nothing else.

Booth took a second rental home, a car that had been driven here by Pete at some point during the day. Rain was falling heavily as he pulled from the road to Perry's house and onto Colfax, and he checked his watch.

The Squint Squad had called earlier to say that they would be arriving here soon, and that they would have a rental waiting for them there. Then they would call for directions.

He tapped his fingers to the wheel, feeling like he was only being useless as he was right now, and he was doing absolutely nothing to help Brennan. His tapping became more agitated. He knew if there was one thing she'd want him to do right now, it would be to take care of her team.

Dammit.

His tapping was becoming fast enough to resemble a blur.

Fine.

With a sharp yank of the wheel, he turned and sped down Colfax.

--

Sacramento International seemed drearier then it had been since they had arrived. Maybe it was the rain, or the way heat rose off the pavements like mist, or the groups of people huddled outside the airport expelling great clouds of white from their mouths. Or maybe it was the fact that last time he had been here, Brennan had been with him and being her usual self. Either way, he wanted the sunshine and his partner back.

"Booth?" an incredulous voice greeted from one of the groups of people as he walked by.

He turned to see Zack staring at him, his hands laced around several pieces of luggage.

"That all of it?" another voice asked before its owner oozed into view. Hodgins.

The rest of the squints came into view, and they froze, all staring at the agent.

"Any news?" Cam asked finally as people streamed by them.

He swallowed and shook his head.

Silence descended upon them, and Booth felt water begin to invade the protection of his jacket, wetting his hair and clothing.

"We should get out of the rain," Angela suggested quietly, her form buried in a coat with a Turkish geometric design. "Didn't quite realize it would be this wet here." Her voice was soft, almost too quiet to hear over the bustle of the crowds around them.

He nodded. "I've got a car here."

"I ordered a rental," Hodgins said. "Should be here shortly."

More nodding.

The silence was accusational. Or, at least, it felt that way. The normally jousting squints had gone still. No one was smiling. Angela hadn't made a joke; Camille hadn't teased him. This was all wrong.

"Zack," he said finally, looking at the young assistant. "How are you?"

He blinked. "Me?"

"Yes. You."

He saw Cam smile slightly. He would lift this funk, dammit.

"As well as to be expected," was the reply. "Given the current circumstances. How about you?"

"Tired," he replied. It wasn't entirely a lie, but it seemed like an untruth. He was more than tired. His worry had made him exhausted, though he had buried it in favor of doing what was right. As of the moment, it was catching up to him. He felt torn between shooting someone and falling asleep.

"Car's here," Hodgins noted, breaking the chasm that had formed between them. "Should we all go out to eat or..." his voice trailed off. "Something."

A collective shake of heads.

"Not hungry," Angela muttered.

"I'll drive a few of you," Booth offered. "Less in one car, you know? Don't have to be as squished."

Nods.

Cam and Angela shifted over to him.

"Going to follow me, guys?" he asked the remaining two scientists.

More nods.

"Okay, then..." he tried to think of something more to say. Failed. "Okay." With a heavy exhale, he headed for the parking lot, two heavy-hearted squints following as two others watched silently from the curb.

--

"What's got you so quiet, Seeley?" a voice asked. "You're never this quiet."

Booth glanced over at Cam, his hands curled over the railing outside the police station. It had stopped raining, at least for now, and streetlights reflected dull orange light off puddles of water and windows from nearby buildings. Her hair was back, and her suit-ish attire was rumpled from the plane ride, and her arms were crossed across her chest as she watched him, leaning against the railing.

He noted the small thing between her fingers. "Thought you quit smoking, Camille."

"I did," she said, her arms unfolding. Out popped a lighter and she placed the cigarette between her teeth, cupping her hand over it as she lit up. "At least, most days." She exhaled, and the smoke drifted away.

He watched the movement with familiarity. It had been so many years since he had seen this scene, them outside of a morgue, her with a cigarette.

"I don't know why, Camille," he replied, his own breaths streaming from his mouth like her smoke. "I don't know why I'm not angry, or sad, or losing it."

She watched him quietly, her hip against the railing, her hand only occasionally lifting off to take another drag.

"I guess..." he stopped. "I guess it just doesn't seem real yet, you know?"

She nodded.

"I mean, she's here one second, and then she's gone. No calls for ransom, no notes from the kidnappers. There's not even any _real proof_ that she's gone, but...she is.

"Can't fight something if you don't know what it is, or where it is, or how to do it. Perry could be our guy, it could be Simmons, it could be some other bastard we haven't even heard of yet."

"What's your gut telling you?" she exhaled from the side of her mouth.

"That it's Simmons...and Perry. Evidence says it's not Simmons, but my gut says it is."

"Well, why can't it be both?"

He shrugged. "Because then...Then...She can't just escape. She can't overpower two guys who have the advantage. Maybe one, but two..."

"Seeley," she touched his hand with cold fingers. "I know I can't just ask you to detach, but I can tell you that if you get too hot-headed, finding her is going to be all the more difficult. Her colleagues are here. Let them take up some of the reins."

He watched her with tired eyes, "You really think we're going to find her?"

She smiled, "As surely as I know that I should've quit doing this years ago," she took another hit and exhaled, and the smoke shot and curled from her nose and mouth like some sleeping dragon before she dropped the butt and ground it out.

"Come back inside," she said, touching his jacket. "Where it's warm."

With a final glance outside, he nodded and followed.

--

The next day, Booth was awoken at eight by the buzzing of his phone. His sleep had been fitful, and he'd fallen asleep late and woken up many times during the night, sweating because of nightmares that had already passed his mind. When the phone woke him, he was unsure whether to be happy about the excuse to simply stay awake or irritated because any chance of rest tonight was now officially shot.

With a weary hand, he reached for the phone, which was doing its best to vibrate itself off the nightstand and onto the floor.

"Booth," he answered.

"It's Pete," an excited voice replied.

The agent sat up, snapping to consciousness.

"We found Perry."

"Is he at the station?" he asked, rolling out of bed and reaching for his pants. "Is Simmons there too?"

"Yes and yes."

"I'll be there in a few minutes." He snapped the phone shut and tossed it onto his bed with one hand while his other secured his pants. He galloped to closet, yanked on his shirt, tie, and suit, quickly fixed himself up in the mirror and dashed out the door. Outside, he went to the nearest squint's door, avoiding looking at Brennan's, and wrapped hard.

"Hey!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! The door shook in its frame.

"Open up!"

The door suddenly clicked open about two inches, revealing a tousle-haired Zack who was gripping a comforter around him nervously. His pajamas were striped and long, and his eyes were pocketed with lack of sleep.

"Yes, Agent Booth?" the assistant asked, his voice heavy with sleep.

"We found our guy. Go tell the rest of the squint squad."

Without pausing to get his reaction, Booth turned and galloped down the hall, leaving a stunned anthropologist in his wake.

The drive over was tense, mostly because he didn't have the advantage of turning on his sirens, and, thankfully due to the early hour, there was no need for him to cut off more than a few cars. The lights cooperated, the traffic was thin, and, in only a few minutes' time, he was parking beside the station and hopping from his car.

Pete and Liz met him at the door.

"Two of the officers I stationed at his house saw him drive in," the sheriff said without formalities as the anthropologist silently handed him a cup of coffee, nursing her own. "They called, I gave the go-ahead, they took him. Only, Simmons was with him too, so we hauled both their asses in."

"Great," he said, his hands shaking with agitation. "Where are they?"

"You have a plan for talking to them? Do you need me?"

He shook his head. "No. I'm doing this one alone."

The sheriff eyed him warily.

"I won't hurt him. Them." If they cooperated. "Where are they?"

"Upstairs," Pete said, exhaling. "Two separate rooms. Want me to talk to Simmons in the meanwhile?"

"No. Let him sweat."

"Okay then."

Booth nodded at him and tromped upstairs, his two new co-workers following quietly behind.

"Here's the packet from Simmons' place of work," Liz said before he went in, handing it to him. "And the case files. Dunno if you wanted them or..." her voice trailed off.

"No. Thanks." He smiled thinly at her.

She nodded.

He opened the door.

"Drew Perry?" he asked, shutting it behind him. "That's you, right?"

"Don't know who else it would be," was his reply.

Booth flashed him a fake smile, walking over to the chair opposite the man and leaning on it.

Perry was a fairly tall man, probably a little less than Booth's own height, and his head was devoid of all signs of hair. He looked to be in his forties, and fine line had developed around his eyes and mouth, the former of which were a hard blue, and one was puffy and dark from a black eye. His cheekbones were prominent but not strong, and his cheeks sucked under them before stretching out over a tight jaw, which was covered with stubble. The man owed his height to a long torso, for his legs—at least from Booth's vantage point—were not extraordinarily long.

"So. What the hell do you want?" Perry asked, leaning back. His mouth was twisted into a faint smile.

"Something funny?"

He shrugged, but the smile bucked.

"You were informed of why you were brought here?"

"No. I decided to come in for a chat."

He glared at him. "Well, you can be funny all you like, but," he dropped one of Liz's files onto the table. "We've got enough evidence to arrest your sorry ass."

"You do, do you?"

"Yeah. DA was willing to arrest you the moment we caught you, she thought our evidence was good enough. Judge thought so too."

"So why am I not arrested?"

"Why didn't you ask for a lawyer?"

Nothing.

"Yeah, see, that's just strange there, Drew. Can I call you Drew?"

"Screw off."

"No. I'm not gonna do that." He yanked out the chair and placed a foot on it, leaning on his knee. "So , where'd you get that shiner there?"

"Tripped."

"Tripped, huh?"

He shrugged, "It's a hard ground."

"Right." He exhaled, "So, do you want me to officially arrest you so that you can call the lawyer, or you want to call her now, or, what?"

"No." He shook his head.

"No?"

"No."

He waited, staring at the guy and his smug look.

Silence.

"What the hell's got you so cheerful?"

He shrugged. "Must be the sunshine."

He didn't reply.

"You wanna know? I guess I can tell you." He leaned in closer, like he was about to tell a deep secret. "Want to know?"

"Sure. Enlighten me."

"Thing is, I'm feeling tired, you know? Would like to retire somewhere."

"St. Croix?"

"Maybe Peru," his smile was becoming cruel, his eyes hardening. The injured one looked black. "And I've had a good stretch here. Would like to move on."

"You confessing all?"

"Maybe."

"Without a lawyer?"

He shrugged.

"So you won't mind if I tape-record this, will you?"

Another shrug.

He pulled it from his suit pocket, where he always kept it, and laid it carefully on the table.

"Continue."

"Thing is, I don't need another run-in with law enforcement. I'm getting old. Almost forty-five, you know. Guys like me should be gone or dead by now."

He wondered where this was going. Why this was so easy.

"But if you really do have evidence, as you say you do," his hands swept over the files in his hands and on the desk. "Then I feel that I must play my trump card."

"Your trump card?" he repeated, trying to crush the tiny worm of fear that was wheedling its way into his gut.

"Yeah. Trump card," he was sneering now, his eyes rock-solid.

He waited.

"Since you've arrested Mark as well, I'm sure you'll have trouble with who did what when. After all, I doubt your..." he glanced at the sheet on the table. "Records will be able to tell you that."

He said nothing.

"So I suggest a trade."

"A trade, huh?" he replied, his own voice a growl.

"Yeah. That beautiful partner of yours."

His muscles tightened.

Perry noticed, and his sneer was wide, revealing yellowed teeth. "Want to hear how sweet she was? How soft? How she shuddered when I pulled away and begged me to come back just one more time?"

He clenched his jaw, his tongue caught between his teeth so hard he could taste blood.

"No?"

He said nothing.

Perry leaned back. "I sense something here. You'd like her back, wouldn't you? Don't want her all alone in the dirt?" his face was twisted into something monstrous, and he was getting excited, his pupils dilated, his fingers fanned out on the table. "So how about we organize a little trade?"

He swallowed, "A trade?" he hoped his voice was stronger than it sounded.

"I give you Mark, I get off. In exchange, I'll tell you where she is."

He said nothing, but his chin rose despite himself.

"Is that a deal?"

He said nothing.

"Hm. Then I guess you can proceed as planned. I guarantee, Mark won't tell you anything. I've got him under my thumb." He pressed the digit to the table. "And this is a one-time offer."

"One-time offer?"

"Yes. Actually, it has an expiration date. One minute."

"One minute?" he was repeating things. Stalling. Maybe Perry was bluffing, maybe he wasn't, but if he wasn't, and Simmons didn't fold, and they proceeded to trial, they really never would find his partner.

"Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight."

This was bad. All against protocol. But the thought of Brennan slowly starving to death underground somewhere was too much for him. The responsibility for her death would be solely on his shoulders.

"Fifty-seven. Fifty-six."

There was a knock on the door, and Booth walked over to open it, listening to Perry's counting with half an ear.

"Take it, goddammit," Liz hissed. "Take it!"

"Forty-three. Forty-two."

"Now!"

"Fine," he turned, shutting the door with his back to prevent Perry from seeing her. "Tell me where she is."

He smiled grotesquely, revealing a row of yellow teeth.

"Alright."

With an edge of defeat, Booth walked over to him and sat down.

--

"I think he was lying," Booth said, an hour later, looking around at the interior of a forest off a sideroad off a sideroad. He was tucked deep into his wool coat, his hands clenched inside his pockets as he attempted to stay the cold.

"No. No. Why would he do something like that?" Liz asked, her eyes scanning the undergrowth. "It would be stupid."

"I don't know. To stall?"

"No. There's no way. That would be too...too stupid," her voice trailed off as she bent. "Oh god."

"What?" Pete said, staring at her.

Booth's pulse picked up. "What is it?"

She said nothing, her bent form, swathed in its long coat, resembling a large bird leaning low over a find.

"It's..." She exhaled forcefully, but no more words came from her mouth.

He stepped around her, and the object that met his eyes forced bile up his throat and into his mouth. As he ran behind a bush and felt his meager stomach contents expel themselves forcefully from his body, the sight remained burned into his eyes.

A skull, swathed in leaves, grinning mournfully from the red dirt.

--


	7. Holding Cells

--

_Chapter Seven_

--

"This is not Temperance Brennan," Liz announced, setting the skull from the forest onto the table with the rest of its skeleton.

There was a collective exhale.

It had taken almost an hour after the skull's initial discovery for Liz to gain the courage to pick it up, and an additional few hours to get the techs over to the scene, carefully dig up the body, transfer it to a body bag, and bring it to the morgue—where it had sat for even longer before anyone had the courage to unzip it. That person was Liz.

The entire team from the Jeffersonian had watched silently as she had transferred the bones onto the table, with Angela in the background looking light-headed. Zack had been frozen, his eyes glazed over, his pupils focused on something seemingly very interesting over Liz's shoulder. Booth, for his credit, had managed to keep hold of his stomach—though just barely when the smell of rot hit him.

But the news that it was not their colleague—a fact that they all had suspected from the beginning—released the tension in the room, and their breaths seemed to blow out as if from a balloon that had suddenly had its pressure removed.

Then it was silent.

"How can you know?" Pete asked, his voice low and controlled.

"She's been de—gone for two days. No way could somebody reach this level of decomp in this climate, with our insects, and our weather this quickly."

"How long do you think she's been buried?" Booth asked.

She shrugged, "A year, maybe."

He nodded, the relief that swelled his insides quickly squelched by the knowledge that even though this wasn't Brennan, it was somebody else who had died at Perry's hands.

Anger rose to his collar as he thought of Perry. That lying sonovabitch.

"Thank god," he heard a voice behind him. It was the only two words he had heard Angela speak all day. "It's not Bren...It's not Brennan."

"We, uh, we should move to ID her," Liz said, clearing her throat. "Her family is going to want her back."

Nods.

"I'll help," Zack offered, his eyes now coming to rest on the skeleton. "I can do that. I'm good at that."

She smiled slightly.

"So can I," Angela said, her voice much less shaky.

"Yeah. Me too," Hodgins.

"Thanks," Liz looked at them with gratitude.

"Booth," Pete said. "You want any help leaning on Perry?"

He met the sheriff's eyes and knew immediately that he didn't. "No." The anger in his collar burned like heat. "No. He's _mine_."

Cam looked sharply at him, but he shook his head at her.

She physically relented, but said nothing. Their silent exchange had sufficed.

"Where is that sonovabitch?" Booth said aloud.

"Holding cell."

"Simmons?"

"Different holding cell."

"Keep 'em separate. I'm talking to Perry again."

Without pausing for a reply from Pete, he brushed past him and headed for the stairs, which he tromped up noisily. Once he reached the top floor, he paced to the holding cell area, yanked open the door, made eye-contact with the guard that was stationed there, and asked for the key, which was granted to him.

"Out," he ordered, not caring about the officer's feelings. "I've got this."

He nodded and stepped out without protest. Obviously he was aware of the situation.

Booth inserted the key into the cell lock, noting with hate the figure sleeping on the floor. His insides felt as if they had been set on fire, and his heart was beating rapidly.

"Get up, you bastard," he said, picking him up by the shoulders and slamming him into the wall.

Perry awoke with a cry of pain, his cold blue eyes opening in shock.

"What's a matter?" he asked, pinning him harder. "Too much for you?"

The eyes narrowed, and Perry's breathing was hard.

"What? You wanted her alive?" he mocked.

Booth threw him and he slammed into the wall, hearing with almost no satisfaction the yelp of pain that followed, his eyes focused on the welt that was slowly fading on his face—the only mark his partner had left for him to find.

"You should be happy, Agent Booth," Perry mocked as he bore upon him once more. "She was—"

"Don't you tell me what she is," he bellowed. "Tell me where the hell she _is!_"

"Didn't I tell you? I could've sworn I did this morning?" he dared stray his eye-contact to glance out a window, which was dark in the night.

"Look at me. Me!" He shoved him again. "And that was _not_ my partner, you lying bastard. That was someone else. Another woman you tortured and murdered."

"My, aren't you angry," his voice was shaky but still sarcastic.

He wanted to slam his fist into his face until he felt his bones break under his knuckles.

"Just a little," he replied.

"So what the hell do you want from me?"

"What do I want?" he repeated. "What do I _want?_" he was bellowing again. He didn't care. This bastard had him running around believing his partner was dead, or missing, or _gone_, and he was playing _mind games. _"Tell me where she is!"

"Where who is?"

"My partner," he slammed his shoulders against the wall again. "Where is she?"

"Oh. So you're one of _those_ partners."

"We're not anything."

"Yeah. Right," he grinned sarcastically. "That's why you don't want to hear the details as I—"

"Shut up! Shut up!" A fuse had blown. He wanted to kill him. "Tell me where she is!"

"Booth!" another voice cut in and two strong arms wrapped around his body. "Booth! You've got to stop this!"

"Where is she?" he roared.

Perry only smiled.

He pushed for him.

Whoever was around his waist pulled him back.

"Stop. It's not worth it. You won't get anything this way."

He breathed heavily and allowed himself to be pulled back and out of the cell, and to be walked to the next room, where he plopped into a seat and rubbed his face with his hands. Another body dropped beside his own, and he felt a warm hand on the small of his back.

"Seeley." It was Camille.

"I'll go," another voice said. Hodgins.

"Me too." Pete.

The sound of two feet clicking away met his ears and Cam didn't speak until the door shut behind them.

"Come on," she said. "Outside. Air. Now."

He complied, and her hand linked around his arm as she dragged him to the nearest door, opened it, and brought him to the balcony.

"Inhale," she ordered.

He did.

"Exhale."

He did.

"Once again."

He did as he was told.

"Talk to me."

He said nothing.

"Now."

He relented, and leaned back against the railing of the building. It was the same railing they had shared the night before, only he felt much different this night. But his anger was slowly dissipating, oozing out of him because of the violence that he had just released.

"I want her back, Camille," he said. "I want her now."

"We'll find her," she said and brushed his shoulders with her fingertips. "Today was a false alarm. A blip. Nothing."

"It wasn't nothing," he said. "It wasn't nothing."

She waited.

"It could've been her, Camille. Her in the dirt. Dead. With those flies. Flies...Flies everywhere. And her skull..." his voice trailed off. Now he was just starting to feel drained. "Dead."

"But she's not, Seeley," she said. "She's not."

It was his turn to remain silent.

She was starting to sound angry, "If you give up on her, how the hell is she supposed to win this? You have got to stay focused. Don't start screaming. Be calm. If Brennan can't count on us to keep some wit of sanity here, then she really does have only her own power to depend on now."

He said nothing. He knew she was trying to get him back on track, but he was too angry. Too guilty. It was his fault. He hadn't been watching her. He hadn't seen this coming.

Cam seemed to notice this. "Hey. Self-pity. Guilt. This isn't going to work. We have to crack Perry or Simmons like an egg. Us—we'll try to help, but you have to keep it together. Together, Seeley. You get it?"

He nodded.

"Now come on," she grabbed his tie and yanked. "There's another woman on the table who demands our attention. And you have to start planning our counter-attack."

She didn't give him a chance to refuse or process her words before she had yanked him inside and started tugging him downstairs.

--

The night passed quietly. Booth was not allowed access to Perry or Simmons, let alone private access, and the consensus was that if the two were left to stew in a vomit-stinking cell for long enough, one of them would eventually crack. Pete's theory was that Perry would not talk no matter the pressure, and Booth said that since he hadn't had a real good talk with Simmons yet, there was always a possibility he would rat on his partner. It seemed like a good decision and they left it at that. No one was particularly happy about the arrangement, but their only consolation was that whatever had happened to Brennan could not change because her tormentors were in their custody, and thus they had only to race against the unknown variables of her conditions.

Zack saved them the trouble, saying that assuming she had had no water since two days before, they had only a little over another day to find her. But considering the amount of moisture in the environment, and Perry's tendency to keep his victim's alive, there was, in all likelihood, some supplies in wherever she was being held. But none of them were counting on that.

With this tacit time limit planted firmly in all their minds, the scientists redirected their attentions to the woman on the table, while the three more investigative-inclined persons in the room—Booth, Pete, and Camille—began comparing notes on the interrogation of Perry and Simmons.

Their battle plans somewhat firmly established, all seven of them retired. Liz and Pete went home, the rest of them went to their hotels and slept. Or at least attempted to. Booth certainly didn't sleep, but he dozed, and his mind was occupied with thoughts of the FBI firing range in DC when he finally rolled out of bed and dressed.

It was late. Ten. He felt guilty about laying around when his partner was somewhere unknown and alone, but there was nothing he could do, and he dressed slowly, this time slipping both guns into his ankle and side holster. Today he needed their support. Likely they would be removed from him when he went in to talk to Simmons, but just the thought of having them here was fairly comforting.

A light knock on the door distracted him as he was washing shaving cream from his chin, and he dried himself as he walked to the door and opened it.

"Hey, Booth," Angela said. She was looking tired, and even the light powdering of cover-up she had applied failed to completely obscure the small rungs under her eyes. "We're all having breakfast downstairs," she glanced around and leaned in closer. "Hodgins sort of slipped the staff some cash to give us privacy."

"Why are we whispering this?" he asked.

"Cam doesn't know that Hodgins is loaded."

"Oh," he inhaled. "I'll be down in a few minutes."

She nodded and left.

Throwing his towel onto his bed, he went for the closet and grabbed his clothing, pulling it on without really paying attention to what it was. His tie was blood red, and he realized this as he was tying it before slipping it off to replace with a black one with an ace of spades on the bottom corner. It seemed better, and he walked out after slipping on his suit.

Downstairs, he found the squints all congregated around a few tables, munching on foodstuffs, but not talking. This wasn't right. There had to be some joking, laughing, teasing. His faithful egg-heads had flown the coop, replaced instead by dreary and depressed squints. His night of unrest had left him no closer to finding Brennan, but as his anger had gone, he was surprised to find it replaced with a sense of determination. After all, he had her kidnappers _here_. They could no nothing in their positions, and men, once tempted sorely, usually are more than happy to take the bait. He had the advantage. This was all doable.

But the squints were not taking heart. They were only looking at in terms of stats and numbers and reasoning. They didn't realize he could—he _would—_get her back to them.

There were a chorus of "Hey"s as he appeared, and he took a chair between Cam and Angela.

"What're we eating?" he asked.

Shrugs.

"Various fried meat products," Zack said. "Yogurt, fruits, and nuts."

He glanced down at the assistant's plate, which was covered over with a bowl filled with something white and creamy—the yogurt probably—sprinkled with small tan, bright red, bright green, and dull yellow things—the fruit and nuts.

"Here," Cam handed him a plate. "Your 'fried meat products.' "

Booth noted the bacon, sausage, and eggs with approval and he smiled at her.

She smiled back.

"I got you a fruit cup," Angela said, handing it to him.

He glanced at her, surprised by an action so much like his partner's.

"Thanks," he said.

She nodded and returned her attention to a piece of toast, which she had worked down to half its original size.

He speared grape with his fork and consumed it.

"Do you think the morgue will have a proper environment to hatch flies?" Hodgins asked.

Cam snorted on her eggs, and Booth felt his stomach lurch.

"What?" the entomologist eyed them. "Just flies."

"Hodgins," Angela muttered, still staring at her toast. "Not at the breakfast table."

He glanced at her before exhaling and peeling a banana.

Booth looked up and noticed Zack staring at them all intently. He waited for the man to speak.

"Um," was the first sound he uttered, and everyone turned to him. He reddened a little, but pushed on. "I realize that it is most definitely appropriate for us to be melancholy, but..." his voice trailed off. "I..." Pause. "I don't know." He gave up and went silent before quickly shoveling his yogurt into his mouth.

"Hm," Hodgins said, his fingers linked around the glass for his orange juice. "You want a joke?"

He nodded.

The entomologist set his glass down. "Three guys step into a bar—a doctor, a—"

A chorus of "No"s and groans hit the table, stopping him in his tracks.

"Hey," he defended. "At least I made an effort."

"We appreciate it, Hodgins," Cam said hastily, hiding the shadow of a grin behind her coffee cup.

He sighed.

"I read a joke recently in the _Journal of Forensic Anthropology—_" Zack began.

"Yeah. All we need are bone jokes," Booth muttered.

"At least it would be ironic," Hodgins said.

Everyone looked at him.

"Sorry. That sounded a lot less cruel in my head."

Nods.

"I'm going to hell, aren't I?" Hodgins asked his toast.

"Save you a seat," Angela replied.

They smiled lightly at each other. Cam snorted.

"You got any jokes to lay upon us, Seeley?" the pathologist asked, glancing at him.

He shook his head, "No. Not really."

"I've got one," Zack said suddenly

They all looked at him in surprise.

"When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C." He stopped and everyone waited for the punch.

"And?" Hodgins asked.

"The Russians used a pencil."

Someone snorted. Angela laughed.

"That was good," the artist said encouragingly, patting him on the shoulder.

He smiled.

"I think I've got one too," Cam said.

Another round of surprised looks.

"I do get out _sometimes,_" she said.

"What's the joke?" Booth asked.

She put her coffee cup down. "Two Jersey hunters are walking through a forest. Suddenly, one falls to the ground—he's not breathing, his eyes are rolled up, and he looks, for all intents and purposes, quite dead. The hunter's companion rings up the operator and says, 'Oh my god! I think my friend is dead! What do I do?' The operator replies, 'Hold on. First make sure he's dead.' "

She took a sip of coffee, and Booth eyed her, wondering where this one was going.

"There's a pause on the line, and the operator hears a gunshot. Then the guy comes back on, 'Okay. Now what?' "

Snorts.

"Morbid, Camille," Booth said.

"Eh, it garnered a response," she replied. "And don't call me Camille."

He smiled, "Don't call me Seeley."

They smiled at each other.

"I guess I can stand to tell one," Angela said.

The rest of breakfast was spent like that, and by the time they left everyone felt a little better and more prepared to handle the day.

--

"We have a possible ID," Liz greeted as the five of them walked out of the elevator and into the morgue. "We think her name was Victoria Maier, thirty-seven," she handed Angela a case file. "Check your sketch. We need a third pair of eyes."

"Dentals?" Booth asked.

She shrugged, her shoulders lifting half-heartedly.

"You sleep last night?"

She inhaled, "Sort of."

"She didn't," another voice called from the morgue. Pete.

"How the hell would you know?" she muttered, walking into the suite and snatching a cup of coffee from the counter.

"Went to bed about when they went to the hotel. Woke up early. You were fully conscious."

"How do you know I didn't just take a nap?" she nursed her bitter liquid, pausing only to say those words.

"You?" he scoffed. "Remember that time when the cat knocked over every single pan in the house and when I went downstairs to see what was the matter and tripped and twisted my ankle, you slept through the whole thing?"

She paused, "Well, that was just stupid."

"Sweetie," Angela said, placing a palm on the anthropologist's shoulder. "Get some rest. Day shift has arrived."

She looked unconvinced.

"Please?"

She sighed, "Alright."

Pete and the artist exchanged a small grin as she clicked out.

"Was she the only one who knew the details of Victoria Maier?" Zack asked. "Because if she was, it seems illogical to send her to bed."

"No. I was the one who found the possible ID to begin with," Pete said. "She just gave me the parameters. And," he grabbed something off the counter. "She has notes."

"Ah." He took them and began to read.

"You do have your sketch?" Booth asked Angela as they walked closer to the skeleton on the table.

"No," she shook her head. "Left it here."

"I've got it," Zack said. "Clipped to the bottom of the papers."

She nodded and he held his hand out for her to take it while she pulled a photo from the file in her hands.

"Well?" Pete asked after she had been staring from the sheet to the photograph to the victim for a few long moments.

"It's her. At least, it looks like it."

He nodded. "I'll go call it in."

A grunt of acknowledgement, a few nods, and he was gone.

"Hm," Cam said. "So the only two people who knew about the victim have now left the room."

"Well," Booth said. "We have files. Come on, squints, tell me what you're reading."

Zack and Angela exchanged a look before beginning to speak.

According to the MP report, Victoria had been a wait staff at a local restaurant at the time of her disappearance, the end of several stints in the restaurant business which had begun after one as a cashier. She had been married to Steven Maier, who ran a small vintage auto repair shop.

"Any connection to our guys?" Cam.

A pause, some skimming of files, and the answer came up as a hesitant "No." Booth wrote a note to have Pete check up on it.

Hodgins moved in, reading things over Zack's shoulder, and reported that he believed that Victoria had been in the ground for about a year—an opinion that agreed with both Zack and Liz's assessments—even though he was going "off his gut."

Then Zack took over, and the MO was chillingly the same as it had been for Julia, only, at least according to Liz's notes, there was no sign of osteomyelitis. She had been held for a shorter period of time than Julia.

A short silence had lapsed over them at that point, to be broken by the re-arrival of Pete, who said that he was going to go over and tell the husband about the death of his wife. Cam asked how long they would expect to be holding onto Victoria's remains, considering the fact that they had Perry's ass in a sling for her death. Pete said he would need to contact the local mortuary services after talking to the husband. The pathologist then agreed to help him get the ball rolling.

They left together.

Zack and Hodgins then went to Victoria herself and began to clean the bones, which had been left greasy and yellowed by Liz—as she had not bothered to clean them. Angela opted to leave and scrounge up some doughnuts, which those who remained in the room had approved of, and she had left shortly thereafter.

Booth, left alone with nothing to do, paced around the building for a while before plopping down on a couch in the lounge area, where he eventually fell asleep. When he woke, he paced around again before heading to the interview room and beginning to set it up as he wanted it. Time was bearing down. His plan was almost in action.

As the clock struck twelve, midnight, Booth was awaking from yet another doze and he rolled off the small green couch with a sense of determination before heading to the interview room, where Simmons was waiting.

"So," he said, opening the door abruptly and kicking it closed with his shoe. "No lawyer?"

"No," was his reply. The man was tired. As instructed by his guard, who was not to allow him to rest.

"Want to hear something interesting?" he smiled winningly at him.

"Depends. Is this an offer?"

He sat down, across from him, "Oh. It's something."

Simmons leaned back, his eyes gleaming with interest, and Booth smiled a genuine smile.

He had him.

-†‡†-

A low groan pierced the silence, a sound that reverberating around the room before being abruptly cut off by a series of coughs. She barely connected the sounds to herself, even as her lungs burned and tore themselves to shreds, and her throat was seared with an acid she wasn't sure how she was still able to produce.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

It was still going. It hadn't stopped. The water that dripped so far from her cracked lips and taxed limbs. The pain had stopped her from going to the sound the first time, but now it was simply because her body was no longer listening to her commands. Her face was buried in something rough and scratchy, and she had long ago thought it to be straw, and the smell was overwhelming. Rancid. Putrid. Rotting. Death. In her delirium, she believed that she was smelling herself as she died, and the water was just some sort of sick clock slowly ticking her time away.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Where was she? She didn't know. Why did everything hurt? It was so dark. So very dark. She wished she could see. Feel. Everything was numb except the pain that burned deep inside, and the heat of her skin and the clamminess of her body. She was wracked with shivers, her eyes slitted dully to see nothing. She could only curl more tightly together, and wish he or they or it would come back and simply end it. How long had she been here? Why had he left her? Why didn't he kill her?

Flies buzzed around. She could hear them, feel them crawl across her body. In the darkness they were her only connection to reality. There were ants too. Other insects. It was hard to keep them from her nostrils, and her exhalations, once strong blows, were now weak and fluttering, like a starling's wing-strokes. They invaded her every curve and crevice, delighting in her warm areas, only shaking off when the next round of coughs tore from her gasping mouth.

Her eyes closed altogether. There was nothing to fight anymore. Her energy was gone, and with it her will to fight. She was barely even lucid anymore. It was too dark behind her eyelids to simply be natural. Only the pain kept her here. God, there was so much pain.

She coughed again, and her lungs burned.

There was a crash from far away. So far away. And the dripping seemed to pause, as if in waiting, until resuming. She thought she had imagined it, but then there was another crash, and bang, and then something fell down the steps to fall by her nose. Her eyes opened back to slits, but they didn't focus on anything, and she stared blankly ahead of her.

Finally they had come. The pain would be gone. She could finally rest.

There was shuffling, and muffled voices, and then they were closer, but her body didn't even tense when she felt their presence near.

"Bones!" a voice exclaimed.

Bones. Her mind stirred. Bones.

"Bones! Bo—" there was a pause, and then footsteps, like muted thunder, swept to her. "Oh, Bones," the voice said and something heavy was draped over her body.

More voices. The one nearest bellowed something, and more banging and thunder approached, and then there was something warm on her neck.

"She's alive," the voice proclaimed. Her mind was connecting dots. It was so familiar.

She coughed again, her breath sucking in raggedly.

Then something warm was around her body and she felt herself being lifted, and held close to something warm and strong and firm. It wasn't causing pain to her, she realized dully, her eyes shutting. It wasn't the men.

"Bones," she felt warm breath on her ear. "It's all over. I've got you."

And then it was quiet, and neither the voices nor the pain came through her tired body to infiltrate her tortured sleep.

--


	8. Nightmares

Besides profanity, this chapter is the reason this fic is rated T. Just to let you guys know.

--

_Chapter Eight_

--

The next day was spent in a fog of unconsciousness. She had vague memories of familiar faces and friendly gestures, but for the most part she wasn't lucid. In fact, she wasn't sure if a day had passed after all; in retrospect, it seemed much longer.

But when she awoke, Brennan felt different. The pain was still there, biting into her neck, and her collarbone, and her lungs and throat, but it was dulled, nullified. There was no straw grinding deep into the wounds, no grit to keep them open, no flies consuming the necrotic tissue. And her lungs felt clearer, her breaths less shallow. She could feel her body, albeit weakly, and the connection made her feel better somehow.

Her throat itched, and she coughed, but her breath wouldn't seem to catch, and she continued coughing, squeezing her eyes tight as her body involuntarily began to curl together.

"Bones," a voice cut softly over her body's hysteria. Something warm covered her hands, which had balled into fists, and squeezed lightly.

She opened bleary eyes as the coughing subsided, and stared blankly ahead.

She was in a hospital bed, covered over with at least two layers of blankets. The light was on on her bedside table, giving soft light to her partner, who was leaning forward in order to get closer to her. Beyond him, a window was dark, the shades only half-drawn. It was night out. She wished this information meant something to her.

Inhaling shakily, she felt the insides of her lungs complain, and her breath whooshed back from her lips. She had no desire to cough again.

"You with me?" her partner asked.

Her eyes slid to his and she opened her mouth again, willing herself not to cough, but found that her voice came out merely as a croak.

"Here," he jumped up and grabbed a pink pitcher. In his excitement some of the water spilled onto the table as opposed to the plastic cup he had been aiming for, and he glanced at her sheepishly before trying again, this time pouring enough water into the cup to allow her a drink.

He helped her sit up a little, and she found her hands quite unwilling to cooperate, for they shook too much to take his offering. He tipped the cool water to her lips, and she gulped it down, choking as she coughed, but swallowing anyway. When she had drained it he gave her more, and more, until finally she felt sated, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

"Thank you," she said, her voice barely a whisper as she opened her eyes again and regarded him.

He nodded and smiled.

She smiled back before glancing back down at her hands, which looked pale against the white blankets. One of them had a clear tube attached to it, and the other a paper band with all of her pertinent information attached. She stared at it dully.

"Talk to me," she muttered. Her voice was so quiet.

"About what, Bones?"

"How long?"

It seemed to take a moment for him to get it, but he shook his head. "No. Not now."

"But..."

"Shh," his hand slipped back to hers, and his warmth felt good on her cold hands. "Bones, you just woke up. Can't you take a moment to breathe?"

A ghost of a smile touched her lips, "Apparently even that is difficult at this juncture." She gestured weakly for the water as he laughed, and she smiled at him as she downed it.

"Can you at least tell me why I'm having trouble breathing?" she asked, swallowing the liquid. It tasted better than she had ever imaged water could.

He sighed, "That's all you're getting tonight."

She nodded, too tired to argue. Her eyelids were already starting to weigh down on her.

"Doctors say you caught pneumonia down there."

She inhaled shakily, closing her eyes. "Bacterial?"

"Think so."

"I guess that's why I'm tubed up." She exhaled and coughed, though not as violently as before. "My temperature?"

"It's going down. Just relax. Doctor's are taking care of it."

She nodded. Pain pulsated in rhythmic beats from her collarbone, and she slowly raised a hand to press over it, closing her eyes tightly as it reacted with a stab of sharper pain.

"You in pain?" he asked, his voice concerned.

"Not much," she lied, slowly slipping from her upright posture so she could lie down. "But I think..." she paused and regained her wording. "I think right now I'd just like to sleep."

"Okay. Sleep well, Bones."

His words barely registered as she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When she next awoke, a cautious stream of light was poking through the window, and her room, though filled with flowers, was absent of people. Or at least it seemed that way. But as she struggled to sit up, two hands appeared to guide her, and she looked up to see Angela, yet another bouquet of flowers gripped between her teeth.

"I feel like I'm in a mortuary," she complained after Angela had given her water. "For godsake, I'm not dead yet."

The artist glanced at her before stuffing the flowers into an already packed vase. "And thank god for that." She smiled, but her eyes were tired. "How are you feeling, sweetie?"

"Like my insides have been ripped apart, and my outsides slashed open," she answered truthfully. But she was glad the urge to cough had not hit her yet.

Angela tut-tutted and sat beside her, "Well, you at least don't sound any worse for wear."

"Really? My voice sounds awful from my vantage point."

"Well, maybe, but hearing your voice was just the assurance I needed that you'd be okay."

"Was there ever any doubt?"

Angela said nothing.

"I don't even want to know what that means," she muttered, and slung an arm over her forehead. She was glad that at least her arms seemed to be listening to her today, even if one of them was mostly immobilized by her throbbing collarbone.

She chuckled, "So what's this I hear about you waking up for Booth first? I thought we agreed that if one of us was to wake up from the dead, the other would be the first to be consulted."

"I apologize. Next time two serial killers leave me for dead, I'll make sure they dump me on your doorstep."

She inhaled sharply.

"Sorry. That wasn't funny." She coughed.

"Here, here," Angela tipped water to her mouth. "You shouldn't be talking so much."

"Oh, good," a voice said from the doorway. "You're awake. Perfect, Bones. This is perfect timing."

She strained her neck back to catch a glimpse of Booth before the pressure set off a coughing fit.

"Hey. Don't overdo it," Angela said, patting her hand when she finally gasped in a choking breath.

"You okay?" Booth asked. He seemed to be clutching something underneath his jacket.

"Fine," she said, and forced herself upright again.

He smiled and glanced around himself before shutting the door and pulling the blinds. Her eyebrows crinkled at his behavior. Angela's rose in contrast.

"Brought us lunch," he said.

"I hardly think I can take solid food right now."

"And this is something I realize, Bones—"

"So, what, you two are just going to eat in front of me?"

He held up a finger before slipping a plastic bag from the inside of his jacket.

"How did you manage to get that in here with all the crinkling?" Angela asked as he placed it on the beside table and begin rifling through it.

"I ate a candy bar while I was walking," he tapped a finger to his forehead.

"Ah," she said.

He smiled and pulled out a small to-go container, which she received with a smile. "And this, Bones, is for you," he handed her round tub, which her fingers, thankfully, supported.

"What is it?" she asked, sniffing around the container. It smelled familiar, a mix of styrofoam and water.

"Soup. Tomato soup." He helped her take off the lid and handed her a spoon, which she promptly dropped as she tipped the whole cup to her mouth, using the hand unaffected by her slashed collarbone. A creamy tomato flavor hit her tongue, as well as whatever spices had been used to flavor it, probably garlic. She swallowed its warmth gratefully, feeling her throat finally relieve itself of its itch.

"Hungry, Bones?" he teased when she came up for air.

"Yes," she said and licked her lips, which were not as dry as she remembered them being.

He smiled before burying himself into his own food—a sandwich.

"Thank you," she said and took another, much smaller, sip from the container.

He nodded, "No problem." Then he looked at Angela, "You've been here since I left?"

"Well, I left to get more flowers."

"Oh. Speaking of flowers..."

Brennan groaned.

"I think I saw the rest of the squint squad in the giftshop earlier."

"Yeah. When I left Hodgins and Zack were arguing about the merits of mixed flowers versus pure. Cam was saying that they should all just shut up and find a _real_ florist so that their selection would mean more."

"So that's why they were leaving, huh?" he took a chunk from his sandwich, and Brennan could smell the meat on it.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Um. Grilled steak sandwich."

Her eyebrow rose. "Please tell me you've eaten something healthy lately."

"Fruit cup," he said quickly. "I've had a fruit cup."

She sighed but smiled slightly. It felt good to tease him again.

Her body didn't object to the soup, and she continued to drink it as her companions silenced to focus on their own food, not speaking until she had drained most of it. "So, are we going to talk about what happened?" she asked, setting the mostly empty styrofoam cup on her stomach, her voice impassive even as disjointed images began to distort her vision.

Booth and Angela exchanged glances from either side of her, and she pursed her lips before either of them had the chance to voice what she knew they would say.

"Not now." Booth.

"Later, sweetie," Angela backed him up.

She sighed.

"Come on, Bones," Booth said. "We'll talk soon, but right now I think you should just focus on recovering a little."

"Are they dead?" she asked next. With her mind clearer, so were her memories, and she remembered the second person in the room with a dull sort of pang in her chest. "Or did they really just leave me to die?"

He shook his head. "We have them in custody."

"You took them alive?"

"We found them before we found you."

"So that's why...why they left me," she breathed, shutting her eyes. The warmth of the soup in her stomach and the smell of flowers in the room were making her sleepy. Her body was already tired, as it was. "Why did you take so long, Booth?" she murmured. "I was so alone."

"Hey," he placed his hand on her own, and she slit her eyes to see him. "Hey, you're not alone now. We're right here beside you."

"For how long though?" she could feel herself slipping away.

"Forever and ever, Bones."

"Mm," she mumbled. Her muscles relaxed, her voice stilled, and she fell asleep.

It was not the deepest of sleeps. Muffled words seemed to occasionally drift in and out of awareness; she felt someone touch her arm around the tubing, manipulating it; it seemed as if the light changed a few times. Then there wasn't any awareness, and she felt as if she was shrouded by darkness and crippled with pain. Voices not of current reality whispered things into her ear; a finger, slender yet strong, ran down the curve of her spine; teeth pushed hard against her lips. She screamed without voice, moaned without words, even after it was not men on her body, but insects. Thousands and thousands of insects, thrusting themselves deep inside her wounds.

She was awoken with a start by a hand on her shoulder, and she recoiled sharply, her elbow banging into a plastic sideboard as her collarbone screamed.

"Shit," she muttered through clenched teeth, cradling her now pounding arm, her left side now one white hot spot of pain.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan," a voice from above her said, and she flinched, her eyes blinking closed automatically.

"Are you alright?" a second voice asked, and she opened her eyes to see Zack and Hodgins, the former of whom still had his hand on her shoulder, eyes wide.

"I...I'm fine," she said, trying to gain control of her wild heartbeat. "Really."

They exchanged glances.

"You were screaming," Zack said quietly.

Her eyes closed again, shame burning their lids.

"You sure you're alright?" Hodgins asked.

"Yes," she nodded.

"Want anything?"

She opened her eyes and met his. "No."

There was silence.

Zack removed his hand, as if suddenly remembering he was still touching her.

"I don't suppose you two will tell me how I got here?"

They both shook their heads in tandem, and Zack said, "Agent Booth has instructed us to ignore any requests for information unless he is in the room."

"Where _is_ Agent Booth?" she asked, sighing. She felt cold, even under the blankets, and her skin was slick with sweat.

Zack shrugged.

Hodgins said, "Probably out getting dinner."

"Why aren't you two at dinner?"

"We all agreed to spend time with you in shifts, so if you woke up you wouldn't be alone."

She smiled, and her chest seemed to warm at his words. The gesture was simple, but touching. "Thanks," she said. "I appreciate that."

He nodded and smiled as well.

"Hey," Cam's voice haled from the doorway. "Shift's over. Go eat."

"But—" Zack started.

"Nope. Out."

Her assistant and Hodgins waved her a meek goodbye before stepping obediently for the door, where Cam and Booth stood. Hodgins stopped to say something to her partner, and they conversed for a few seconds before the entomologist officially took his leave.

"Dr. Brennan," the pathologist said in a surprised tone, her eyes shifting downward to meet her own. "You're awake?"

"Yeah."

"How do you feel?"

"Shitty," she didn't feel like voicing her pains and decided that the expletive conveyed enough information to be of use. "But I'll be okay."

She nodded and opened her mouth, but Booth interrupted. "Camille," he said and lowered his tone to say something to her. She nodded.

"I'll be back later," the pathologist said with an apologetic smile before she too stepped from the room, leaving Brennan alone with Booth.

"You had a nightmare?" he asked without formalities, still framed in the doorway.

"Hodgins?" she guessed.

He nodded.

"Yes," she said, and her body was cold again. She felt herself begin to shiver, her limbs automatically curling closer together under the protection of her blankets.

"I guess we have to talk now." He didn't seem happy with the prospect.

"Yes."

"Want me to get Angela?"

"No," she shook her head. "No."

"Alright." For the second time today, he turned and shut the door, closed the blinds, this time to allow privacy not for food but for words, and she turned onto her side as he moved to her, trying desperately to control her shivers.

"Where do we start?" she asked, keeping careful control over her jaw's movements.

"Where do you want to start?" he replied.

"Medical records."

"Whose?"

"Mine."

"Oh." He got up from his chair and walked around to the end of her bed, where he pulled off a clipboard. Walking back, he handed it to her and plopped back into his seat.

She inhaled and attempted to force herself upright, forgetting, for a moment, her collarbone, which sent a scream of pain shooting through her body. It took all of her effort not to cry out, and she fell back immediately, her eyes squeezing shut.

"Bones, you alright?"

No. Not really. "I just..." she inhaled. "I just forgot about my arm." She inhaled again and coughed, hating how weak she felt.

"Maybe these should wait—" Her eyes opened as the clipboard still gripped in her right hand was tugged upon.

"No!"

He paused and stared at her.

"No," she said with slightly more control. "I can read them."

He eyed her skeptically before helping her to sit up, and she flashed a smile in thanks before turning her attention to the papers before her.

She was on a combination of pain killers and antibiotics, the latter to treat the pneumonia and the former to knock out pains such as the one in her clavicle. However, a look at the times for treatment revealed that someone had lowered her dosage of pain meds earlier in the day, thus explaining why she seemed to have received almost the full brunt of her pain just now. As if in confirmation, her neck prickled.

Groaning slightly, she flipped the pages, skimming.

Her left clavicle, like Julia's before her, had been sliced deep, though not transversed entirely, and both it and the puncture on her neck—from the syringe that had originally been used to knock her out—had been horrendously infected at the time she had been checked in. She had also been extremely dehydrated, and, when she checked the records, she had only just been taken off fluids around the time her pain dosage had been lowered. She was also diagnosed with a mild stage of pneumonia, and she was doubly glad she had not been held for longer, for the infections combined with the lung problems probably would have killed her faster than the men would have.

She shuddered, though whether it was due to the chills or that idea was anybody's guess, and moved on to be confronted by her own rape kit. She stared at it dully. It felt like she had to force her eyes to see the words and convey their meanings to her brain, but in the end a few things were gleamed: one, fluids had been found and collected. She was surprised to see Cam's signature as the person who had taken the sample from the doctor for testing, and although she knew it was merely a formality—for they all knew who had done these things to her—she would still ask for the match. She didn't want to remember herself.

Secondly, and more importantly, her blood had been drawn for a pregnancy test, which had come back negative. She breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes for a moment. It was a thought that had tortured her feverish mind almost constantly while she was down there, wherever 'there' was, and it was a relief to get a final answer.

"Did you fall asleep?" Booth's soft voice cut into her thoughts.

"No," she opened her eyes and shook her head. "No. Sorry. Just thinking."

He glanced at the page she was on and she hastily flipped it to reveal the beginning of her rather heavy past medical records—obviously faxed from DC—and she closed the charts, wanting to see nor remember anymore.

"Done?" Booth asked, and she nodded and handed him the clipboard, which he got up to carefully reposition on the end of her bed. When he came back she stared at him expectantly.

"Well?" she asked.

"So you want everything tonight?"

"Everything," she replied.

"Bones," he paused. "You, um, you may have to testify against them."

"Okay," she nodded.

"So when we, you know, talk about...what happened to you," he seemed to be as intent on avoiding the subject as she was. "I've got to...record it."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she nodded and lifted her usable arm to wave him onward.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"Their names."

He sighed and started, "Mark Simmons—"

She inhaled sharply, instigating a cough from deep inside her throat, which hurt like hell.

Simmons, that bastard. No wonder she had recognized him. Her hands curled into fists.

"And Drew Perry. Both of 'em work in at auto shop. Sierra Body Auto Shop, specifically."

"What?" she inhaled again, and exhaled forcefully. "I..." her voice trailed off.

He nodded, "Hold on a little, Bones."

She nodded as well, and kept quiet.

"Simmons was our answer after all. He was alibied out for the kidnappings because he was working, but he was attached because he helped Perry with the repair jobs. Perry kidnapped the victims, stored them, murdered them. Simmons was the one with actual contact, and he took advantage, but he can only be charged as an accessory."

She closed her eyes.

"After we realized you were, you know, gone," he hesitated on the word before moving on, "We paid some closer attention to the records for the auto shop, and realized Perry's connection. It took us a day to track him down, but we found him and Simmons together, and took them in.

"Perry refused to crack. He said..." he paused. "He said he'd killed you."

Her eyes opened and she stared at him dully. There had been a time down there when she had wished he would.

"He directed us to a site out in the middle of a forest," Booth continued, "and we found a skeleton..."

"God," she breathed and shook her head. She didn't even want to imagine what they must have been thinking when they found it. "Who?"

"Victoria Maier. I've got her file here, but I want you to look at it later, alright?"

She nodded.

"By the time we discovered her identity, I realized Perry was the dominant personality in this whole thing. So I went to Simmons real late and talked to him."

"Lawyer allowed it?"

"He didn't want one."

"Hm," she said, but commented no farther.

"Anyway," he pulled something small and shiny from his pocket. "I recorded the conversation. Want a summary, or do you want to hear it?"

"Play it for me," she said, and closed her eyes again.

"Alright."

She heard a click, and then a second more metallic click.

_So. No lawyer?_ her partner's voice asked.

_No, _was his reply.

_Want to hear something interesting?_

_Depends. Is this an offer?_

_Oh. It's something._

Pause.

_What?_

_I don't know what your deal is, Mark, but we've got both of you cold. Your partner just directed us to the body of a dead woman._

Silence, then muffled muttering.

_Now, I don't know how that seems to you two, but that's about as incriminating as it gets. But you know what I'm thinking? I think Drew's got plans to rat you out, claim it was all you, that he just took advantage of an offer. He's going to cut a deal._

Pause.

No reply.

_And you know what? Evidence says it could be both, could be one of you. And whoever points his finger first has the clear advantage._

_This story have an end?_

_Yeah. _A slight clattering sound. _Here's my suggestion. You tell me exactly what's going on here, and I'll recommend leniency._

_What? You feeling charitable today?_

_No. But as your peace offering, you are going to tell me where my partner is._

_I am?_

_Yes._

_Why shouldn't I just leave that little bitch to die?_

_Because California's got the death penalty._

Silence.

_Yeah. You tell me where she is, you tell me what goes on in this sick little ring of yours, and I'll see if I can get the DA to take the needle off the table._

Nothing.

_Fine. You know, I'll go offer this to Perry—_

Something scraped and there was a clicking sound.

_Wait._

Pause.

_You mean it?_

_Mean what, Mark?_

_No needle?_

_I'll see what I can do._

_Fine. Fine. Come back, man._

The clicks came back, and there was another scrape.

_I'll tell you what happens, here. _Short pause. _Drew's a little short-sighted. He's too impatient to do things himself, so I gotta find the girls and tell him where to find 'em._

_Seems a little unfair, don't you think?_

_No. Hey, man, you pulled me in first. I was accounted for during the times of the kidnappings. You know why? If you found me, you wouldn't be able to tie me to him or him to them without some digging. And while you were digging we would get the hell out of dodge._

Pause.

_I only come for the free pussy. But I ain't never killed no one, man. I was telling the truth. Drew gets off on that shit, not me._

_My partner?_

Pause. _Drew was following the papers, and there was a pretty little pic of her right next to the article. He says "Wouldn't it be ironic?" and I ask what, and he goes, "if we killed her when she's the one investigatin'." I told him it was crazy to go after a cop, but he says she ain't a cop, and it would be poetic irony or somethin'. He was really gettin' off on the idea, and then you showed up at my house, so, you know..._ He stopped.

_What?_ Booth's metallic voice prompted.

_He called it fate, or somethin' like that._

Silence.

_Well, anyway, I ran. _Pause. _Drew found out, and he started talking to me. He said they couldn't hold me, and it would be the perfect opportunity_

_To do what?_

_To grab her. He said he'd hang around by the station and come up with some sort of plan, and in the meanwhile I had better just shut up and not give 'em an excuse to hold me._

_So you let yourself get caught, hm?_

_Yeah. Afterwards, I didn't have the chance to do anything, but when I talked to Drew later he said everything was fine and I had better just not screw up anything from here on out. Next thing I know, she's rolling up to the station asking for help, and Drew's laughin'._ He stopped.

_Then...?_

_He had the benzo with him, and he went out to the car. Next thing, she's on the floor and he's haulin' her up, carryin' her like a bag of fucking potatoes. He throws her in the back, and I'm sweating. I say, "What now?" and he tosses me her keys and tells me to get rid of her car._

_Where?_

_Deep in an off road in Alta Sierra. You want directions, I'll find it for you._

_Go on._

_Anyway, we brought her back to his place, waited until she woke up, then we did our thing for most of the day and left._

_She was alive?_

_And moaning. Then all of sudden we head back, and your guys are all over us. The rest is history._

Pause.

_That's what you wanted?_

_Yeah._

Silence for several beats.

_'Hell's my partner, you sonofabitch?_

_Hey, calm down, man. I'll tell you. Keep your goddamn pants on._

Pause.

_Drew's got his own special place. It's a little storm cellar off his property._

_We searched around the house. She wasn't there._

_Then you weren't lookin' hard enough._

_If you're playing me, you little—_

_Hey, man. I'm confessin' all, free of lawyer. Why the hell would I be jerking you around?_

No reply.

_Yeah. Exactly. She's there, alright. We didn't have a chance to move her anyway, and there's no way that little bitch escaped._

_Why?_

_Perry keeps the place locked tight. And even if he didn't, we discovered early on that if you break your collarbone, you sure as hell aren't going anywhere._

Silence.

_You know those bushes that border the road leading up to Drew's house? _Pause. _Yeah, well, if you feel along them, around the beginning of the road, you'll notice one of 'em isn't nearly as thick. Drew went in there with a machete, cleared out most of the back of it. Looks exactly the same from the front, but you can easily slip through and behind it to the other side. That's where he hid the cellar._

_Is there another way around?_

_Hey, man, if she's alive, she'll fit through the opening just fine. But you're welcome to wander around the forest until you find Colfax._

There was a pause, then a great clatter.

_Let me tell you something, dirtbag, if she's dead, I'll personally insert the needle into your arm._

_Hey! Relax, man. I'm telling you. When we left her, she was sucking air. I swear to god, man._

Another clatter and then silence.

_Anything else?_

_No. I've got nothing else to say. You going to hold up your end of the bargain?_

_Yeah. We'll see._

Click.

The tape stopped.

Brennan exhaled, her eyes closed in shame. She could feel the hints of tears in her corneas, and when she opened her eyes one of them escaped, and she brushed it away roughly. His voice was so cold, and it chilled her blood that he had been the one to determine her fate.

"His information was good," Booth said. "And we found you."

She nodded, staring straight ahead.

"You alright?"

"Yeah. Just...sort of hard to hear, I guess."

"We don't have to do this—"

"Yes," she looked at him. "We do. Because then tomorrow we'll have the same urge to put it off, and then the next day it will be the same, and the day after that. I am not going to live my life afraid of my memories, Booth. And I sure as hell am not going to let Simmons or Perry have the advantage nor the satisfaction of hanging over my mind for the rest of my life." She stopped for breath and her lungs, irritated by the speaking, forced several coughs from her throat, and she swore when she regained control over her breathing.

Booth, having apparently decided that to say nothing would be the best course of action, waited until the coughing spell had run his course, and remained quiet until she worked up the nerve to speak.

"Where should I start?" she asked, her voice low. Now that she had her wish, she wasn't sure she really wanted it.

"This is technically an official statement," he said, pulling a different tape recorder from his pocket. "So I guess you should just start at the beginning."

She stared at it, "Even after Simmons confessed like that, you really think you'll still need me?"

He shrugged, "There's no way we can prosecute them without legal council. And with enough spin, a lawyer could easily make my confession out to be coerced."

Her eyebrow rose, "Was it coercion?"

"Off the record, yes. But I'd do it again."

She exhaled. Her insides felt as if they had been shaken, her stomach churning. She could feel her heartbeat increase in tempo as he clicked on the recorder and she stated, monotonously, her name, the date, and other pertinents, and listened while Booth did the same. Then he silenced, and she was left with a gap, which her voice filled haltingly.

"I don't really remember how I ended up in the storm cellar, specifically," she began. "I remember that I left the morgue, and that the car was making odd sounds, and there was this...this light that kept flashing on the dash. And it was raining. Raining so...so hard." She exhaled. "And I looked in the phone book, and I remember driving to the mechanic's because I wasn't sure how to deal with the issue."

"Which mechanic's, Dr. Brennan?" Booth asked. It almost pained her to hear her name from him, and, once again, she closed her eyes.

"Sierra Body Auto Shop." She stopped and shook her head. "That's all I remember."

He didn't reply, but she felt his hand on her arm, and she pushed ahead.

"And then...And then I was in that cellar."

_Drip._

"And I remember there was a faucet. Or a pipe."

_Drip. Drip._

"It was leaky. I could hear it. Over and over...Incessant. Maddening."

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

"And the smell. God, it was rancid..."

_Her nose was buried in the old mattress, and with every inhale she could smell it more. Heady, thick and strong. Metallic. Her stomach rebelled, and she choked as a mixture of acid and food contents rose to her throat and poured from her gaping mouth. Her sides ached, her breath came in gasps, and her throat burned. Where was she?_

"I think they overdosed me or something. On the sedative." Her words came out haltingly. "My mind wasn't working. But I couldn't see anyway...it was so dark. Too dark. Eyes couldn't adjust. There wasn't much light to begin with, and after they left it was gone entirely."

"They?"

"Two men. Two men attacked me, held me. I couldn't stop them..."

_His hands pinned her down. She couldn't breathe. The stench was overwhelming. The pressure on her torso all but paralyzed her._

_His breath came in rapid gasps. He was sweating a lot. She could smell him over the blood and the rot. He was getting excited. When she struggled, he applied more weight. When she stilled, he laughed._

"And the second man...I didn't even know he was there until he spoke."

"_Get on with it, man."_

"And I recognized his voice. It was Mark Simmons."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Yes. I know it was him."

"_Taking too goddamned long, like always."_

"And the first man—Perry—he had a knife, and he ran it along my throat. Cut me." Her fingers brushed her neck. "I don't know why. And after Simmons spoke, he..."

_The knife rose from her throat, and it shined dully in the darkness before it was gone from her vision and blurring downwards, and then pain, so sharp her vision went white, blazed into being. The sharpness went away fairly quickly, and she laid there as it was replaced with a steady wave of pain, her vision dissolving into blackness. Bile rose to her throat again, but the man's weight had not relented, and she choked it back down. Blood dribbled from her collarbone, and it slid from her body, soaking her shirt, and pooling onto the mattress._

_The smell was sharp on her nose and a hand clamped over her mouth, and it was only then that she realized she was screaming, her heart pounding hard against her neck, her forehead pulsating with pain. His hand crushed her lips, and she tasted blood as his mouth slid from her jaw to her bleeding wound, and she felt his tongue force its way into the hole he had created in her._

"It was only later that I realized...he had done what he'd done to all his other victims. My collarbone..." her hand slid to the thick padding that covered the still angry wound. "He'd attempted to break it...just like...like the others..."

_The intrusion sparked more pain, and her cry reached a new octave. She was sobbing, her voice a high note of anguish, and he released his hold on her mouth to crush her neck, and she was silenced instantly, almost unable to feel the weight under the pain she was already feeling. Her vision was white-tinged again, and whatever she used to see was no longer visible. She was blind as he invaded all of her senses, and his touch barely induced a shiver as his hands ran down her body._

"And..." her eyes were wet under her eyelids. "And then he..." she inhaled. "He raped me."

Silence. Booth's hand was tight on her own, but she couldn't look at him.

"When he was...done with me, Simmons took over and I—they..."

_The second man was abruptly shoved off her, and she sucked in air as words she didn't care to hear passed overhead. Adrenaline pounded through her veins, her head spun. She felt naseous._

_Pressure returned to her midsection as she was straddled again, and she reacted instantly. Her fist flew forward and met something soft and wet, and he cried out, savagely ripping her hands to one side._

_"You're going to regret that, you little bitch," his voice was steely calm as he whispered into her ear._

_Something rough cut into her wrists as she felt his teeth on her skin._

"They tied me. I couldn't stop them...couldn't do anything." She inhaled, stopping for a beat. "And after they stayed with me for a long time. A very...A very long time." She shuddered as she inhaled. "I don't know how long. It was...it was too long." She shook her head. "Too goddamned long."

Pause.

Booth said nothing. She could hear him breathing.

"And then, suddenly, they were gone..."

_A moan escaped her lips as rough hands untied her. Her hands were numb as he worked at the bonds, her face shoved deep into the bloody mattress. When he was finished, her hands fell lifelessly to her sides, and she was wrenched around. A shadow stood over her as a second pulled things from the floor and tossed them. He said something but she couldn't hear him, wouldn't hear him. Exhaustion was calling her, and even the pain seemed to have dulled. They had kept her awake. She hadn't rested. She was so tired._

_As they left, the only light in her prison, which lit some far corner that she had never been able to see, was snuffed out, and she was left in total darkness. Something banged from far away, and suddenly she was alone._

_Sound flowed from her bloody mouth; it started low, from the deepest portion of her chest, the very bottom of her lungs, and slowly rose in pitch. Her body seemed to melt into the cry, a sound of the purest grief, the deepest loss. Her breath poured into it until her lungs were left screaming for air, and the cry was suddenly choked off as she gasped and sobbed into the pitiless silence._

_As she quieted, a new sound played upon her senses once more. In time with her heartbeat, her breath, the pain. She listened to it. Her only companion to wait out the night._

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

She stopped, drained, and Booth clicked off the tape recorder. There was no more to tell. As of the moment, she had nothing left to give.

They sat in silence for a while, and her tears dried, and her mind, once again, began to construct walls between her and her memories. She felt exposed, and angry, and hurt. She didn't know what she felt. She was sure if she saw either of her attackers she would fly into rage, but confronted with the facts and voice tapes and memories, she felt that the only thing she really wanted to do was go back to sleep.

Booth seemed to be having the same problem, for he remained silent, his hand tight on hers. He was definitely upset. She could sense it. But as to how to alleviate both of their emotional stress, that she did not know.

So she did what she always did. She just decided to throw a card upon the table, and, hopefully, it would spark words of any sort, and would, at least, lighten the air between them.

"So." Her eyes opened, and she looked over at him.

He was staring off into space, his jaw set, its muscles bulged. He didn't seem to hear her.

"So?" she said again, more loudly, this time with a question mark.

He snapped out of his trance. "You ask for something?"

"Just...say something."

He sighed, "I'm thinking, Bones, I'm thinking real hard."

She was surprised, "You don't know what to say?"

"No," he shook his head.

"But we have them, right? I mean, Perry and Simmons really are in custody?"

"Yes."

"Then I think," she exhaled softly. "I think for now, that's all I need to know."

"Bones," he groaned. "Facts aren't always the things that are comforting."

"Well, in this case, right now, they are." As she said it, she found that the knowledge was satisfying. More satisfying than she had originally thought it would be. "But..." her voice trailed off. She wanted to ask something of him, but she wasn't sure she had the right to do so.

"What?" he prompted, as she had left the thought unfinished.

"Would you stay with me tonight? At least until I fall asleep?" She wasn't sure she wanted to face the night alone just yet.

"Of course," he nodded. "Of course I'll stay, Bones."

"I mean, you don't have to stay the whole night...just a little longer."

"Don't worry," he smiled slightly at her. "I'll be here when you fall asleep and when you wake up tomorrow."

"But—" she wanted to protest.

"Nope. Non-negotiable. Whether you want it or not, I'm here to stay." His smile was tired, but a hint of mischief was in his eyes.

She smiled her own weary smile. "Thank you."

He nodded. "But there is one slight catch to this deal, Bones."

"And what would that be?"

Before she could react, he snatched something off the table on the other side of her bed, and held it teasingly beyond her reach. A remote.

"Wha—There's a TV in here?" she glanced around, and noticed one hanging from the east wall.

"Yep. And the deal is...I get control of the remote."

She smiled and shook her head. "Alright."

He grinned and clicked it on, scooting closer to her bed so he could see the television better before resting his head on his arm, which lay in turn on her bed.

"Basketball or hockey, Bones?"

"Neither," she said dryly, wrinkling her nose.

"Hey, look. There's a talkshow host."

"Oh god."

"Jeez. Must be late." He set the remote on her bedside table, where she couldn't reach it. "Ah, well."

"Booth?"

"Nope."

"Come on."

"Uh-uh. Bargain, Bones."

She exhaled, and settled in, grinning wryly despite herself, to watch a man in a black suit and pink shirt with a shock of copper hair and a look of utter mischief upon his face as he danced around a stage with a blow-up doll, allowing her memories to fade away.

--


	9. Epilogue

_-Chapter Nine-_

_(Epilogue)_

Brennan's night passed quietly and without nightmares, and she had even managed to laugh at a few of Conan's more self-deprecating jokes. Booth slept, albeit uncomfortably, beside her, his head resting on a pillow she had ordered a nurse retrieve for him. She had outlasted him, and when he had fallen asleep, she'd switched off the talk show following Conan's and watched a special about slot machines.

Exciting? No. Distracting? Yes.

She fell asleep to the tinny sound of change pinging through slits of metal.

When she next awoke, Cam was curled in the seat Booth had occupied the night before, her nose buried in a book of pathology. A cup of coffee sat abandoned on the bedside table, as well as a half-eaten doughnut. Brennan stared at it.

Damn, she wanted that doughnut.

Cam, oblivious to her, reached for the sweet, her eyes still scanning the page. It took her probing fingers a moment to find it, and when they caught around it, she smiled slightly to herself before taking a bite. Brennan eyed both it and her as the pathologist slowly consumed the doughnut, all the while wanting to have whatever was left. When it was gone, she felt irrationally angry for not speaking up.

"Sweetie," a voice from the door exclaimed in a tone all too loud for the morning.

Both Cam and Brennan jumped, and when the anthropologist turned her eyes went from Angela to the doughnut she clutched in one hand.

Good lord. Had they made a frigging doughnut stop?

"Oh, don't you even think about it," the artist clucked. "This was the last glazed. I had to fight a kid without chest hair for it."

Her eyebrows crinkled. "How do you know he didn't have chest hair?"

"I know these things, sweetie," she said knowingly. "But I got you an éclair."

"Let me guess," she said, taking the proffered bag, presumably containing the treat. "Had to fight an elderly person?"

"Actually, it was a couple."

Her eyebrows shot up, but she decided not to comment as she pulled back the plastic to reveal the chocolate-covered pastry.

"Dr. Brennan," another voice from the doorway chided. "You haven't eaten a thing we've given you."

Angela shifted aside to allow a man in a white lab coat through, and Brennan regarded him as he stepped over to her. His face was soft and his chin and cheeks were covered in a thick white beard, all to border more of the same sort of hair on his head. He was maybe fifty.

"Well," she replied. "Let's face it, doctor, hospital food is disgusting."

"And controlled."

"My friends aren't poisoning me and besides," she bit into the éclair, relishing it as it disintegrated. "I'd like to see you try to get this away from me."

"Hmpf."

"I wouldn't try it, Doc," Angela said, munching on her own doughnut. "She'd kick your ass."

"And I am feeling a little antsy," Brennan agreed. She took another bite. "Right now, I don't think I'd like anything more than to punch something."

"So you are keeping solid foods then?"

"If I don't vomit within the next few hours, I'd say yes."

"I see. How are you feeling?"

"My lungs aren't as scratchy, and my fever seems to be gone."

She flinched automatically as he lay the back of his hand to her forehead, and he retracted it quickly.

"Sorry," she muttered.

He exhaled. "Still a little warm, doctor, but you seem to be responding to the meds very quickly."

"That's good then. How soon until I can leave?"

"Not so fast," he clucked. "Although some persons have been able to wipe pneumonia from their systems in the course of a three-day treatment, you should stay until at least your fever is gone."

"I can take care of myself."

"We'd also like to keep an eye on your infections," he continued, ignoring her. "I'm going to check on your collarbone, alright?"

She nodded, but even though she knew he was coming she still shied away from his touch. Stiffening, she gritted her teeth as he removed the padding and looked it over.

"God," she heard Angela breathe. "Does that hurt, Brennan?"

It throbbed dully under the doctor's touch, but for the most part it seemed to be blocked by the pain meds she was on again, at her request last night.

"No," she said.

Angela grimaced.

"Well, it looks much better than it did," the doctor said, straightening. "I expect you should be able to leave within the next few days."

"Few days?" she repeated. "Why?"

"Time to adjust, time to heal."

"Why not tomorrow?"

"We'll see how your infection is at that point."

She sighed and glanced down to notice her éclair was melting onto her fingers. "Alright, doctor."

She took a bite as he took his leave.

"Friendly guy," Cam said. "And it's bad, Dr. Brennan, but we can manage it."

She exhaled again.

"Brennan!" a third voice exclaimed from the doorway. "Jeez. You're finally awake, are you?"

Brennan looked over to see Liz, who had coffee in tow.

"I've been awake for the past..." she thought. "Two days?"

"Not when I've stopped by," she pouted. "Avoiding me?"

"No."

"Hm," she walked around her and grabbed a chair, which she yanked beside Cam's. "What'd you say to that doctor? He looked pretty miffed."

"Not sure," she replied. "Don't care honestly." She popped the rest of the éclair into her mouth, savoring the cream and the chocolate and the buttery-pastry as it dissolved on her tongue.

"That's the spirit," she smiled tiredly. "How do you feel?"

"Like crap." Not quite as strong as her word last night. "But I am also drugged."

"Is this a good thing?"

"Well, I'm not in pain, so yes. It's a good thing." She felt thirsty and glanced at Cam. "Are you finished with that?" she pointed to the coffee on the bedside table.

"What? Oh. Yeah." She handed it to her. "Forgot about it."

"Thanks." She downed some of the bitter liquid. She wanted to move around and leave this damn bed.

Angela, perhaps sensing her worsening mood at the doctor's prediction of how long her stay here would last, said, "Booth called."

"What'd he say?"

"DA agreed to try Perry and Simmons on a full sentence. She's wrangling for a death penalty."

"For Perry?"

"Both," yet another voice announced from the doorway. Booth.

"You broke your promise to Simmons?" Brennan asked.

"Nope. DA, you know, she insisted."

"I see."

"And besides, I never said I would take the needle off the table. I said I'd _try._"

"Try?" she repeated.

"Yeah. I would argue if the DA brought it up."

"And did you?"

"Yeah." He plopped down on the chair beside Angela's. "For about three seconds."

She scoffed but felt no sympathy. In fact, she felt a little happy.

"What now?" she asked.

"Now, Bones, we just keep the day light, and we live through it."

"Oh, speaking of that," Liz said. "Remind me later tonight that I have something for you."

"What?"

"Oh, that would ruin it. You'll know tonight."

"But what if I wanted to know now?"

"Then I'd have to say 'too bad.' "

She sighed.

"Dr. Brennan, we have good news," the voice of Zack announced from the doorway.

"You can save over five hundred dollars on auto insurance by switching to Geicho," Hodgins said.

Her eyebrows crinkled together as Angela, Booth, Liz, and Cam all gave a collective snort.

"What?" Zack said.

"Nothing," the entomologist replied. "Nothing."

She let it go.

Zack still looked confused.

"What is it?" Angela.

"We come bearing fresh and hot glazed doughnuts," Hodgins said, his voice now sounding important.

"Where'd you get them?" Booth.

"I threatened the doughnut guy until he'd make them. But, unethical behavior aside, our spoils are good."

"Thanks, Jack," Brennan smiled warmly at him.

He pressed a palm to his chest and bowed.

"Bravo!" Cam said, taking a doughnut.

Liz whistled.

The entomologist looked up and smiled.

"To friends," Angela said, brandishing her doughnut into the air.

"And may the morgue never die," Cam said, and all seven of them knocked their unhealthy sweets together.

"That's an oxymoron," Brennan pointed out.

"Eh. If it works, it works."

"I don't even know what that means, Camille," Booth.

"Neither do I," Zack.

"Whatever."

Someone snorted, and, collectively, they took a bite.

"Liz," Brennan said, hours later, "I don't think this is healthy."

"Who cares? And you need your strength back."

"I'm not sure this will help."

"Then eat a fruit cup with it."

"I don't have a fruit cup."

"I'll get you one."

She sighed and slipped the fork from the small cardboard package. "If you insist."

"I do."

She grinned at her and took off the lid for the chocolate soufflé, which Liz had brought to her in the morning. The smell wafted up to her nostrils and she said approvingly, "You got it heated."

"I did indeed."

Brennan settled back into her chair.

Having gotten sick of the bed, and unable to simply sleep now, she had opted to get up while everyone, save Liz, was out on a coffee-break. The other anthropologist had been only slightly resistant, and had helped her out in the long-run.

Unfortunately, she had been sedentary for nearly a week now, and in only a few yards she was down again, this time on a chair. When her team had returned, Booth had been annoyed and argued that she get back to bed, but her stubborn streak had won, and she had remained planted firmly on the chair, her med rack gripped with one hand. Her partner had, however, insisted on giving her a blanket, and she had draped it over herself.

Hours had passed, and eventually she had shooed everyone from her room, with the exception of Liz, who had wanted to stay. Liz told her about Victoria Maier, and her side of Brennan's rescue before finally stopping, holding up a finger, leaving the room, and coming back with the small white box from Diego's.

"What're your plans now?" Brennan asked, nursing her fork.

"Oh, going back to Chico," Liz replied, leaning back on her own chair, which was opposite Brennan's. "I took time off my teaching."

"I thought you had come back from Argentina?"

"Yes. But by now I would have been back and taken over the fall anthropology rotation. So it's back to grading papers for me."

"Fun." Her voice was dry.

"You teach?"

"On and off. It's been hectic lately with Cam and personal problems, but I'll probably be back to it by the end of the year." She savored the rich chocolate as it melted on her tongue. "You know, just one of those short workshops or something."

"Fun." Now her voice was dry.

She shrugged, "Teaching has never been my forte, but I spend more time in bone storage than I do up in forensics. And there's only so much I can do for Limbo."

"Limbo?"

"Bone storage."

She nodded. "Yeah. I do most of my forensic work out of the country."

"DC has a fairly high murder rate, but most of it never makes it to me. And those from the surrounding states, again, don't usually end up on my table."

"And thus we are forced to teach idiot undergrads to scrounge up a living."

She grinned, "Actually, I usually get the grads."

"Ugh. Hit me while I'm down."

She snorted.

"Gimme a bite of that."

She obliged and held the fork out for Liz to take.

"Damn, that's good," the anthropologist said, handing it back after scraping off a bite. "Should've got one for myself."

"Why didn't you?"

"Unnecessary calories." She shrugged and leaned back. "'Sides, with all the doughnuts and crap I've been consuming, I've gotta get back to at least making an effort at healthy."

"Think they sell salads around here?"

"With mushy croûtons, no doubt."

"Ugh," she swallowed more chocolate, drowning out the phantom flavor that had appeared on her tongue. "Should probably get it from somewhere else then."

"Yeah."

"Wish I could go with you. Hate being tethered here." She jabbed a finger at her med rack. "I don't even feel sick anymore."

"Heard you coughing earlier," Liz pointed out.

"Now who's hitting whom while she's down?" she muttered darkly.

She laughed.

"Anyway," she laid the rest of the chocolate on a nearby table, feeling full. "Help me up. I want to walk around a little." She shoved off her blanket and rolled her legs from over the chair's arm, planting them firmly on the floor.

"Sure that's a good idea?" Liz asked, an eyebrow arching. She didn't budge.

"I'll know after I try it."

She rose. "Leap before you think, huh?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Doesn't matter." She took her arm and pulled her up. "Feel steady?"

"Steady enough," she said and took a halting step forward, one hand around her med rack, which wheeled quietly beside her. She paced around, glad to feel it took less out of her simply to move than it had before.

"Think my clothing is here?" she asked, mostly to herself, as she stopped and glanced around for a closet.

"Why?"

"Just...wondering."

"It's not like you can just discharge now, Brennan."

"I know, but I'd like to maybe go outside."

"There's a balcony around here."

She looked at her, "That would be a suitable alternative."

"Think you can make it out?" she asked, walking closer to her.

"The real question is whether someone will stop me from going."

"Won't be me."

"Yeah," she glanced around her, out at the quiet hallway. "I'm not worried about you."

"Thanks a lot." Her hand slid to a hip.

She smiled. "You know where this balcony is?"

"Yeah. I'll take you there."

"Lead on."

Shaking her head, the other anthropologist turned and walked out, glancing carefully around the glass doors first. "No docs or scary nurses."

"Sounds good."

Together, they ventured from the room.

The air was chilly, and Brennan wished vaguely that she was wearing more than a loose hospital gown as they padded down the tile floors. It occurred to her that she must look like hell, and she decided to avoid all reflective objects for the time being.

Liz turned down the hall into an empty room, which, in turn, opened up into a small balcony, where she shrugged off her jacket and handed it to her.

"Here," she said. "Should have some covering."

Gratefully, Brennan slipped it on. "Thanks."

She nodded.

Outside, the air was warm in the early night, and lights were on throughout the buildings around and below them. Black mountains rolled in the background, their borders pierced by the shapes of trees and dark structures. The sky was blue-black, and a few of the brighter stars and planets shown through to border a crescent moon.

"You realize I haven't been outside since it happened?" Brennan asked, not really knowing why she was saying it but saying it anyway. She leaned against the wall, staring up at the sky and taking great pleasure in simply breathing fresher air.

Liz said nothing, but grunted in acknowledgement.

"Feels good."

"Mm-hm."

She slid down and tucked her legs under Liz's jacket, for her feet were getting cold and her exertion, though light, seemed to have worn her out.

"Don't fall asleep," Liz warned. "I can't exactly carry you back."

"I won't."

"You will."

"I won't." She closed her eyes, smiling quietly to herself because she knew she was lying.

"If you do, I'll have to get somebody else to carry you."

"Uh huh."

"Maybe the mean doctor."

"Right."

"Or one of the scary nurses."

"Mm."

"I find your lack of response to my threats disturbing."

"Maybe that's because I know as well as you that they are empty."

"Hmph."

"Exactly."

Her arm, which was still wrapped around her med rack, slid down and she huddled slightly closer together, her head on her shoulder.

"Not smart, Brennan."

"I know."

"I'll have to wake you up later."

"Then so be it."

She sighed.

Brennan grinned.

Shortly thereafter, she fell asleep.

Brennan was released the following evening, to no one's great surprise. Her cough had all but dissipated and her pain, though still present, was starting to lighten and she insisted that she would be able to survive on ibuprofen alone. The doctor had not been swayed and had given her a slightly more powerful narcotic, but, in the end, he too had agreed to let her go. Whether it was due to Brennan's recovering immune system or the visit he had been rumored to have received from a certain concerned artist was anybody's guess.

But whatever the cause, at sunset the following day Brennan was up and leaving the bathroom, where she had changed into clothing Angela had fetched for her. Her necklace was heavy on her neck, her earrings swaying slightly as she walked. Their weight was comforting and she found herself smiling contently as she left the wretched hospital room and its flowers behind, putting the memory of the bruises on her face and body out of her mind.

"Where's your wheelchair?" a voice greeted from her left and she turned to regard her partner, who was leaning with one foot up against a nearby door. He was grinning easily at her.

"I opted against it," she replied and smiled back at him.

"Hospital policy, Bones."

"Since when have I followed policy?"

"Fair point." He got off the wall to join her and together they walked down the hall. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," she said truthfully. "Much better."

"Sure you're ready to leave?"

"I guarantee that if I stayed, I'd probably only get worse."

"So you're not one hundred percent?"

"No. Lungs are still a little touchy and my legs are a little shaky, but other than that I can handle it."

"Pain?"

"I'm drugged."

"Looks like you've got it all figured out."

"I do." She looked around, her eyes skimming over a few nurses, empty gurneys, medical racks, and a seemingly endless row of hospital rooms. "Where is the exit?"

"Nowhere, Bones. We'll be trapped here forever."

She glared at him. "Now, if that were true I really would go insane."

"Relax," he grinned at her again. "Turn right at that hall." He pointed.

She smiled despite herself. Damn him.

"Where's the squint squad?" he asked as she increased her pace, intent on leaving. "I'm surprised they're not all here to see you out."

"I sent them back to the hotel. We're going to go out to dinner soon and I figured they might as well change out of clothes that smell like hospital rooms first."

He nodded.

They turned the corner and Brennan spotted an elevator, which she quickly stabbed the down button for. It dinged open immediately and they stepped inside.

"Oh," she said as the doors shut and they began going down. "Do we even have a car?"

"Yeah. I rented one."

"Good."

Silence descended upon them, and Brennan watched the small golden numbers flash as they lowered floors. 3...2...1.

Ding.

They stepped out.

"We need something to argue about," she said as they stepped from the glass doors. The sun was dazzling in her eyes, the dying rays of yellow and magenta framing black trees and blue mountains. The parking lot was bordered with trees which blazed in fall colors, from burgundy to gold, and the sunlight reflected from small pools of water, windows, and nearby buildings.

"Why do we need to argue, Bones?" Booth replied. "Can't we just enjoy the view?"

"Not sure," she shrugged and tucked her hands into her pockets before beginning to walk again. Booth fell in step beside her. "Feels like we should."

"Why?"

"We haven't really argued in a few days. Or at all, really, since I got back."

"And this is a bad thing?"

She shrugged again. "Maybe not." She noted that he seemed to be veering toward a certain parking space. "This our car?"

"Yep."

"Don't suppose you'd let me drive it?"

"Nope," he shook his head.

Her lips parted and she turned to see him grin. Shaking her head, she said, "I come back from the dead and you still will not allow me into the driver's seat."

"Yeah, well, important matters such as driving a car should be left to the most lucid person in the group."

"You may be lucid, but you still refuse to wear a seatbelt."

"Moot point, Bones. This is the way it should be. And besides, you know, at least I'd be able to bale out of the car in a hurry."

She scoffed. "One day I will show you pictures of fractured skulls from automobile accidents."

"And I will remain, as always, unfazed."

"That's not a word."

"It should be."

She separated from him and yanked open the passenger side door. "But it's not."

"It is in my world." He opened his own door and hopped inside as she followed suit.

"There seem to be a lot of things happening in your world that us humble outsiders are not privy to."

"Oh, you have no idea."

Her eyebrows arched.

"Nevermind."

"Okay." She snorted as he started up the car.

It was a short drive to the heart of town, and soon they were back at the hotel, which she greeted with relief. A welcoming sight, even in the backglow of the fading sunset. Her friends met her as they left the car, and she received their light hugs and murmurs of welcome with a broad smile.

"Know where we're going to eat?" Hodgins asked when the small group had quieted down.

"I'll surprise you," Liz replied, smirking.

"_I_ don't know what that means." Angela.

"Let her," Brennan said. "I have confidence in your taste."

"Thank you."

"As long as it's not too carby," Cam said with a grimace.

"Oh, lighten up, Camille," Booth elbowed her.

"Watch it, Seeley." She leveled a finger at him.

"But please no more chocolate," Zack requested. "I have eaten too much of it in the past few days."

"Too much chocolate?" Angela repeated. "Honey, you've got a lot to learn."

"About chocolate?"

"About everything."

His eyebrows crinkled together.

"I say let Liz choose," Brennan cut in. "After all, we are leaving tomorrow."

Nods.

"Alright," Hodgins said. "But first, Dr. Brennan, a toast." He opened up the backseat to his car and pulled out a bucket off ice. "I figure it's appropriate now since there's no obligation to get wasted in the parking lot."

"Drinking and driving, Jack?" Brennan asked.

"Just a sip. We can get into the hard stuff later."

"Hm," she nodded.

"Anyway," he popped off the cork to a bottle of champagne and poured pale pink liquid into seven glasses situated within the bucket. "With this short bit of alcohol which will hopefully not create a nasty hangover in conjunction with your pain meds—"

"Man, he can really set the mood," Booth muttered.

Cam elbowed him.

Hodgins ignored them both, "...We will further cement the bonds of our forensic unit. You know, like larva to a puparial case."

"Or cartilage to bone," Zack added.

"Or tendon to muscle." Cam.

"Or paperwork to forensics." Liz.

"Good god, Jack, just give me the glass already," Angela said and he handed it to her.

"I second that," Booth said.

Hodgins grinned before passing out glasses and Brennan received her own with a small grin of amusement to the entomologist.

"At any rate, to Dr. Brennan," Hodgins said. "And may we never know a better boss—"

Cam coughed.

He bowed slightly to her. "_Non_-boss."

"Or a better friend," Angela said.

"Anthropologist." Liz.

"Teacher." Zack.

"Co-boss," Cam grinned.

"Or partner." Booth.

"And may we never have a toast nearly as corny as this for as long as we shall live," Hodgins finished.

They all sipped.

"Now," Booth said. "I think it's time for dinner, don't you think?"

Nods all around.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Brennan asked. "Let's go."

Without further milling about, the alcohol was stored away, the glasses were stuffed into the ice, and the scientists—one FBI agent included—took off for one last dinner at an Italian place overlooking Grass Valley and its lazy evening traffic.


End file.
